IVAN MALKOVYCH: With an Angel on His Shoulder
Ivan Malkovych / meridiancz.com
Ivan Malkovych (May 10, 1961) is a poet, publisher, and director of the publishing house «A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA». He is a laureate of the Shevchenko Prize, a recipient of the International Order of the Smile, and was named «Person of the Decade» by Korrespondent magazine. Malkovych is the author of seven poetry collections, including The Key, Poems for Winter, and Everything Nearby. He is ranked among the Top 100 most influential people in Ukraine and is often referred to as a modern-day Ole Lukøje.
«WHITE STONE»
In the foothills of the Carpathians, frost reigned. The Liuchka River first resisted but then obediently froze. Snow fell abundantly, powdery and light. Inside a warmly heated house, a father was teaching his three-year-old son to pray:
— Look, tomorrow Saint Nicholas will come. He has an eagle-like nose, brown eyes, a gray beard, and a sack of gifts slung over his shoulder. He’ll bring you a toy horse and candies and ask if you know how to pray. So repeat after me: «My little angel, my guardian angel…»
Thirty years later, this prayer would be printed on the first page of his Alphabet because a book should begin not with «shark» or «bus» but with a heartfelt conversation.
Time passed. It was filled with the sound of violin music, verses about autumn and pears, and soccer and hockey games. The backdrop included mountains with strange names — Kychera and Ruzhet, the Ivano-Frankivsk town hall, cathedrals, poetry about a long-felled cherry tree, Kyiv’s universities, and metro stations.
It was a time of inner drive, dancing until dawn, and practicing chicken-picking on the guitar while singing Hutsul and Lemko songs. Mornings were spent listening to the Dnipro River and reflecting on a boy healer meant to be placed on wounds. There were lectures to attend, potatoes to dig in collective farms, friendships with aspiring poets, and thoughts about life.
Curly-haired, dressed in a stylish, warm coat and beret, he and his like-minded friends met on Khreshchatyk, near the «pipe» underpass, gulping down bitter coffee and reading poems to each other. Oksana Zabuzhko would show up in a Snow Maiden’s fur coat, always with her folder under her arm.
Kyiv welcomed the student warmly, but the city buzzed in Russian. This language echoed in trams, supermarkets, and theater lobbies, yet Ivan stubbornly held his ground. When people heard his Ukrainian, they would ask where he was from. He smiled in response, «I’m an old Kyivan».
At nineteen, his poems were published in the newspaper Literaturna Ukraina. The preface was written by Dmytro Pavlychko, who presented it in lofty and celebratory tones because the verses were alive. They glowed with eternal candles, roamed barefoot with music, and swam upstream like fish, pushing aside the water’s edge with their fins.
Later, he learned that in 1980, Lina Kostenko and her family had moved to a new apartment. It was Christmas Eve, and they were sitting on the floor since they didn’t yet have couches or chairs. Her daughter Oksana was reading Ivan’s poems aloud. Lina sat motionless, listening.
She asked for some poems to be read twice. Two years later, she wrote a review, calling him «the most delicate violin of Ukraine». At twenty-three, he published his first collection, White Stone, and a year later became the youngest member of the USSR Writers’ Union.
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD AND THE CURLY-HAIRED POET
The bookstore Poezia, located at the beginning of Paris Commune Street (now Mykhailivska), was crowded and buzzing with energy. A literary evening featuring Oksana Zabuzhko was about to begin. Ivan, along with his friends, never missed such events, but this time, his attention was drawn to a blonde girl. She stood in a red woven hat, clutching a violin tightly to her chest, and kept rising on tiptoe as if searching for someone.
The young poet tried to focus on his colleague, but his gaze continually returned to the stranger. His friends immediately noticed his interest and began devising plans to introduce him. One suggested he sign White Stone, while another slipped a few bullet casings into his hand and instructed, «Go and tell her her beauty has wounded your heart».
In the end, they dragged Ivan over, but words caught in his throat. Surprisingly, the girl responded to his greeting in perfect Ukrainian (at the time, it sounded almost alien in Kyiv). Seeing his amazement and delight, she added, «My name is Yaryna».
After the presentation, Yaryna and her friends were heading to the Philharmonic, so the smitten poet tagged along. He bought decent tickets for everyone, but the girls remained cautious — perhaps due to the six-year age difference.
Kyiv was glowing in autumnal gold. The air smelled of mushroom soup and rustic herbal smoke. The cobblestones sparkled with the season’s first frost, but inside, he felt an unfamiliar warmth. From that moment, they began seeing each other.
Melancholic November and bustling December flew by. New Year’s Eve exploded with party poppers, celebrated in different gatherings. The young man returned home early in the morning, barely settled into bed, when the doorbell rang. It was Yaryna. «I came to greet you and scatter seeds». They’ve been scattering seeds together ever since.
They married in the summer of 1986 after the Chornobyl disaster had somewhat subsided. The wedding was grand — 500 guests — celebrated in Ivan’s native Carpathians, near the Liuchka River and the mountains of Kychera and Ruzhet. Yaryna enrolled in the conservatory, and Ivan began working at the Molod publishing house. Amid daily routines, he continued to write:
She stepped down from an amphora — so fair,
As if cloaked in mist, a guelder rose.
A proud and intoxicating Scythian,
With an ancient name: Yaryna.
I asked: Are you born of haze
Or spring’s first bloom, snowdrop-clear?
And love and silence,
And your voice — were wondrous…
WANDERINGS OF «A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA»
Once, while traveling by bus from Ivano-Frankivsk, Ivan gazed out the window at the snowy landscape. Spring was slowly awakening, yet the drifts remained dense and woody. He recalled an evening — his father in a festive shirt, his first prayer. What if he published a good alphabet book? After all, his son Taras was already four, and there was nothing suitable to read to him…
Let an angel smile at children from the first page, followed by a bear with dumplings and a pumpkin surrounded by its relatives. And so he set out to turn his idea into reality. The artist was Kost Lavro. The poems were selected with great care and love. One, for the tricky Ukrainian letter «Ї», stood out in particular:
Їжачатко з їжачком
Їли кашу з молочком.
Каша була солодка.
Моя казка — коротка.
Thus, the publishing house «A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA» was born. Its birthday was celebrated in April, and by July, his Alphabet appeared in bookstores. The year was 1992 — the first year of independent Ukraine. Ivan was only thirty-one, but youth added drive and ambition. Thinking big, he aimed for a large print run — 50,000 copies.
Borrowing 26 tons of raw materials (cardboard sourced from a recycling center) and $1,500, he paid off the debt in just over four months. That marked the beginning of his fascinating journey — one driven not by money but by a desire to create quality books. From that moment, each publication became a work of art. For the collection Favorite Poems, he took a bold step — printing it on high-quality Dutch paper!
It cost a fortune — $12,000. However, the factory workers had yet to grasp that they no longer lived in the USSR; theft was rampant and shameless. Ivan and his family had to spend nights at the factory, guarding the materials. Yet the workers cheerfully warned, almost to his face: «You can park an armored vehicle here, but we’ll steal it anyway». People still didn’t understand private ownership.
They couldn’t yet grasp that honest business and honest living were possible. About 20% of the paper was written off as “technical waste,” ink was poured carelessly, some pages stuck together, and in the end, 1,500 copies were missing. It was a crushing blow for Ivan, who had dreamed of providing his fellow Ukrainians with high-quality Ukrainian books, only to face theft in his own «backyard».
HAMLET, THE SNOW QUEEN, AND THE LITTLE PRINCE
Life raced forward. No sooner had the lilies of the valley faded than winter arrived again — snowstorms, a wary sky — in short, another cold season. After Favorite Poems, the whirlwind carried off The Snow Queen, Nestayko’s masterpieces, and One Hundred Tales. As Ivan’s sons grew older, so did the books. The focus shifted to adult literature, beginning with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, translated by Andrukhovych, followed by poetic masterpieces by Lina Kostenko and Taras Melnychuk. Works by Andriy Kokotyukha and Yuriy Vynnychuk also appeared — poetry bound in colorful fabrics.
One standout was the collection of carols and holiday songs, Nova Radist Stala. It was a magical book filled with blue snow and the aroma of homemade hearth fires. Warmth radiated from windows, stars glowed like rye grains baked into the frosty sky. Opening it evoked the grandeur of Christmas celebrations.
The texts weren’t just for reading — they could be heard too. Ivan envisioned traditional Ukrainian melodies filling malls and markets before Christmas — not English carols but shimmering, native shchedrivkas. And then came the prince, whose planet resembled the ocean floor — greenish, watery skies, clay-like sand, and birds with long, flowing tails gliding back and forth overhead.
Eventually, «A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA» sold publishing rights to 19 countries. The Snow Queen was released in the UK in a jewel-adorned case. Inside, melodies played, and readers could blow on frosty patterns and brush off snowflakes with their hands. Next came the Mini-Wonder series — fairy-tale booklets sold for just one hryvnia, scattering like butterflies across Ukraine.
The campaign reminded people that instead of cursing the darkness, they should light their own candles. Letters of gratitude poured in — over 40,000 of them. Then came the Ukrainian translation of Harry Potter. At first, Ivan Antonovych hesitated, thinking it was just about magic. But after reading it, he realized it was a story about love.
And so it began — the first book, the second, the fifth… By the fifth volume, the Ukrainian translation was ahead of the rest of the world. While most offered only the English original, «A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA» provided it in native Ukrainian. Grand presentations followed, featuring symphony orchestras, as Potterheads flocked from tiny villages and major cities.
The final release became the largest book event in Ukraine’s history. Over 3,000 readers filled the Ukrainian House, occupying all four floors.
CAPTIVATING EVERYDAY LIFE
Every year, the publishing house releases around twenty books — each one exquisite, nurtured, and crafted with soul. Ivan Malkovych lives by the principle: «Do it beautifully or not at all». He resides outside the city, tending to his apple orchard, having heartfelt, lengthy conversations with his beloved Yaryna, and passionate, dynamic exchanges with his sons, Taras and Hordii.
Devoted to his work, he pays attention to every detail — meticulously proofreading, editing, and overseeing the printing process to ensure colors align perfectly, shade by shade. He engages in sometimes challenging discussions with authors and holds long meetings with illustrators and designers. He keeps his finger on the pulse until the delivery truck exhales a puff of smoke and distributes the new books to stores.
Malkovych has never created books for the sake of profit; rather, he has always made money for the sake of books. While working on one, he keeps two or three more in mind — some collections exceed two thousand pages. He celebrates Easter and Christmas according to tradition, preparing his signature kutia with seven types of honey — linden, acacia, and buckwheat among them.
Sincerely and eagerly, he sings carols, donning an old leather coat. He draws inspiration from good stories and his family, occasionally whispering with his guardian angel — sometimes seeking advice about the next publication, other times asking not to slip from his shoulder.
