Regarding Some Problems with the Text
All evidence, based on textual analysis, and plain common sense, points to “The Kyiv Commix” as having been authored by no more than two native-English-speaking individuals, most likely from North America, and working in concert.
However, these individuals were not particularly concerned with employing any recognized standard of editing, which ranges from slipshod to virtually non-existent, either ignoring, or being unaware of, even the simplest rules and conventions.
Likewise, in attempting to synchronize the Ukrainian- and Russian-language texts and references in the work, my colleagues and I noted the lack of any system of transliteration into English.
Sometimes words or phrases in Ukrainian or Russian are translated directly into English; sometimes they are more or less transliterated, and other times, they are just sort of sounded out with aural approximations.
Nevertheless, neither I nor my staff have taken any liberties with the foreign words involved here, believing that doing so would greatly detract from the work’s extemporaneous quality – something we felt is an essential characteristic of the work.
But countless questions remain.
The Apocrypha section below, for example, has left us scratching our heads regarding the criteria used to decide what should go there.
Nor, after intense scrutiny, are we convinced as to the validity of the front matter’s ‘Introduction’, as such, but rather tend to see it as being more of a piece with the stories it precedes, although not, as a result, ascribing questionable motive to it – necessarily.
Therefore, when wrestling with doubts provoked by this work, we assure the Reader that the reasons for them lie much deeper than the style guides, bilingual dictionaries, or editorial practices employed by our staff.
Edward Turtledove
Chief Translator