A pioneering Ukrainian modernist writer; sister of Yuliian Kobyliansky. A self-educated and well-read woman, her first novellen were written in German, beginning in 1880. From 1891 she lived in Chernivtsi. Her travels and acquaintance with Lesia Ukrainka, Nataliia Kobrynska, Osyp Makovei, Ivan Franko, Vasyl Stefanyk, and Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky changed her cultural and political outlook, and she became involved in the Ukrainian women's movement in Bukovyna and began writing in Ukrainian. Many of her works鈥攊ncluding the novels Liudyna (A Person, 1891) and Tsarivna (The Princess, 1895)鈥攈ave as their protagonists cultured, emancipated women oppressed in a philistine, provincial society; semiautobiographical elements and the influence of the writings of George Sand and Friedrich Nietzsche are evident. A neoromantic symbolist, she depicted the struggle between good and evil and the mystical force of nature (eg, the short story 鈥楤ytva鈥� [Battle]), predestination, magic, and the irrational in many of her stories of peasant life and in her most famous novels, Zemlia (Land, 1902) and V nediliu rano zillia kopala (On Sunday Morning She Gathered Herbs, 1909). Her works are known for their impressionistic, lyrical descriptions of nature and subtle psychological portrayals.
Kobylianska's works have been published in many editions and selections. The fullest collections were published in 1927鈥�9 (9 vols) and 1962鈥�3 (5 vols). In 1944 a literary memorial museum dedicated to her was opened in Chernivtsi.
This is an early example of a Ukrainian feminist novel, written in the 1880s. The English title is 鈥淭锄补谤颈苍补鈥�, but as one of the reviewers quipped, a better analog would be Pride and Prejudice in Bukovyna (Western Ukraine).
I鈥檝e read it now because this year I plan to read more of Ukrainian classics, so I took (Ukr) and decided to go through the list as it is composed, i.e. chronologically. This is the #8 in the list. It is also the (chronologically) first novel by a woman and the last published in the 19th century.
Ukrainian literature is lucky to have a number of talented women among its creators in the 19th and 20th century, who were as popular as men 鈥� , Olena Pchilka and . However, the first novel in the list was written by a bit less popular than those three, . Even if some of them had works before this book, they were novellas, plays, and poems and thus are absent among novels.
The author was born in 1863, at the Duchy of Bukovyna, then Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Romania. She had only 4 classes of primary school, learning in German (the language of the empire) and Romanian (the language of the local elite). Her father was a minor government official from Galicia with roots in central Ukraine; her mother was a Polonized German. Unsatisfied with her formal education, she continued self-education and was an active proponent of women's rights, including equal educational opportunities. This novel was her debut publication in 1896 (but not the first written) and was initially written in German in the 1880s and then translated by her into Ukrainian.
The story starts as a personal diary of Natalka Verkovichyvna, a woman of 20 years, slender and poetic, with great green eyes. She is an orphan and after the death of her grandmother lives with her uncle and his family. The uncle is fully under the thumb of his wife, whose constant derision and microaggression toward Natalka, who doesn鈥檛 want to follow the path of obedient daughter-wife-mother, ruins her days. Natalka prefers reading (both love novels and non-fic for self-education) instead of sawing and waiting for a husband, as her aunt wants her to do. She even tries to write on 鈥榳omen's question鈥� and dreams about helping both women and people in general (esp. poor illiterate peasant Ukrainians). She meets a young relative of their neighbor who it seems shares her views. He, Vasyl Oryadyn, is also an orphan, the son of a village priest鈥檚 daughter and Ukrainian Gypsy (actually meaning that instead of agriculture he worked as a wandering musician), which is considered an 鈥榰nequal marriage鈥� and rumored long after their death. He has radical socialist views and is also quite handsome and she falls in love with him. However, due to the nature of times and her introverted personality, she cannot make the first step, loving him from a distance, despite a clear dislike of this Marx follower and progressor by her aunt. Vasyl told her a lot during their few (just two or three) meetings about his desire to help people as well as calling her Tzarina, so she created his idolized image in her mind. As time goes on, he ever more distances from this ideal image, but she still thinks of him. Meanwhile, she is pressed to marry a much older professor, whom she despises and after internal and external struggles, she leaves the house, starting to work as a companion to an old lady in Chernivtsi. The lady鈥檚 stepson is a fleet doctor, a compassionate and kind, but far from handsome man, who (unsurprisingly) falls in love with Natalka, but hides his feeling, assuming that he has no chance against Vasyl鈥�
This is definitely a novel of its time 鈥� a period when it was almost impossible to a woman to study or work at something except for around 鈥楰inder, K眉che, Kirche鈥�. The 鈥榩oetic鈥� nature is stressed by Natalka鈥檚 walks in parks and fields, 鈥榝alling in tall grass鈥� and similar tropes. Author鈥檚 knowledge of European authors leads to quoting and alluding to , and . Natalka stresses that her ideal life is to constantly perfect herself and helping to her nation, in the former clear references to Nietzsche鈥檚 脺bermensch.
The story is a little of a 鈥榯ouchy-feely鈥� kind, in which heroes constantly struggle with problems that from my biased view are blown out of proportion and I don鈥檛 mean social injustices but personal sufferings, which remind me of teenage angst.
To have such freedom to be one's own goal! First of all, to be a goal for oneself, to work for one's own spirit like a bee; to enrich it, to increase it, to bring it to become shining, beautiful, exciting, shining in a thousand colors! First of all, to be a goal for yourself and to cultivate yourself, day after day, year after year. Carve yourself, align yourself, so that everything is complex, subtle, and lovely. So that there is no disharmony left for the eye or the heart, for any of the senses. To calm the thirst for beauty. To be first and foremost a goal for oneself, and then to become either something great for one person for all time or to give oneself to work for all. To fight for something higher, reaching far beyond everyday happiness. This is my ideal. A free human with a mind is my ideal.