Unswerving we tread a beckoning pathway,
Our young breasts we raise to defy the wind’s power,
Thunder we deafen with paeans of victory.
Only he wins his goal who, unmoved, presses forward,
Who burns with a passion that never consumes.
Life’s carpet spread out lures his youthful steps onward,
The crown Death shall weave him immortally blooms.
More faith in our cause! Raise higher our banner!
Tears, groans, and misgivings ... begone from the fray!
Life rides a winged charger,
Spreading flowers on our way.
(Translated by A. P. Coleman)
In his early poems as _Anxiety and Joy Embraced_, Oles harps on that
theme which was so dear to the early symbolistic authors in all
European countries that sorrow and joy are closely connected, that in
nature the extremes meet and that it is the duty of the individual
to embrace both as parts of the great existence of the universe. In
moments of depression he returns to the same theme with an almost
pantheistic interpretation of nature as but an external manifestation
of what is within the human heart.
It was an age of symbolism. In Russian literature it was the time of
Aleksander Blok with his symbolic dramas and of Leonid Andreyev with
such grim and disillusioning plays as _The Life of Man and Anathema_
where the characters are universal types as man and woman. Oles follows
in the same traditions and produced many lyrical and symbolistic plays
as _On the Road to a Legend_ and the _Tragedy of the Heart_. They are
really literary dramas better suited to be read than produced.
Very rarely are the characters personalized. There is He and She
and a Girl, a Gentleman and a Lady. They are merely symbols for
Oles to indicate the involved and contradictory, self-including and
self-excluding universe and man. They deal with the memories of
the past and the hopes for the future but Oles realizes that there
is no clear line of demarcation and that no one of the alternating
and contradictory emotions of the human heart and emotions and mind
can ever win a clear and definite triumph. Man and the universe are
mysteries and we can only hope to approach their underlying meanings
by indirection and symbols. All of this makes them very difficult for
theatrical representation but they easily belong in the masterpieces of
Ukrainian literature.
Again following the tastes of the day, Oles translated into Ukrainian
Longfellow’s _Hiawatha_. It was one of the many translations of this
poem that were made early in the twentieth century into the Slavonic
languages. Of all the masterpieces of American poetry, not one has
taken a firmer hold on Slavonic thought and feelings than has the story
of the Indian chief and lawgiver. Hiawatha became almost a symbol
of America and Oles in making his translation marked an enormous
step in the placing of his native literature on the basis of a world
literature, in which the world masterpieces existed in adequate and
poetical translations.
Oles belongs to the greatest masters of his people’s literature but
he can never be popular in the sense of a Shevchenko or a Franko. He
will always be a poet’s poet, a man whose art requires sympathy and
understanding. At times in the height of national indignation or of
national jubilation, he emerges from his cultured seclusion and his
study of human moods to express something clear and definite. For the
most part he remains within the mystic shrine of pure art and deep
thinking and feeling as one of those poets who represent the higher
aspirations of modern civilized man.
The recognition of Oles as a great poet by his people is a sign of the
growing maturity of modern Ukrainian literature. It is a sign that the
people are securing a new intellectual class, are acquiring a modern
culture, are thinking in modern ways, and sharing modern emotions.
It is a sign that Ukrainian culture is deepening constantly and that
with favorable conditions it would include all those gamuts of emotion
and thought that have been fitted into those literatures which have
developed naturally and freely over long periods of time.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AFTER 1918
The brief independence of the Ukrainian National Republic and its fall
could not fail to have catastrophic results upon the literature. The
whole trend of Ukrainian literary development had been to develop along
those lines on which the other literatures of the world had travelled.
There had been a constant effort to establish close contact between the
Ukrainians in Russia and those in Austria-Hungary. Finally there had
come with Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, and the later authors at the very end
of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, a group
of writers and critics who were familiar with what was going on abroad
and had striven to acclimate at home the new methods and ideas as they
were rising to prominence.
All that was changed. New barriers were erected between the different
parts of the dismembered country and these barriers were even more
impenetrable than those which had been erected by the severe decrees of
Russia at the middle of the nineteenth century. Then it was possible
for the Ukrainian authors in Russia to print in Galicia and have their
works smuggled back into Russian Ukraine. Now the censorship was
ruthless and efficient. Some of the authors as Oles, the last of the
great names who remained alive, emigrated to Prague to live the sterile
life of an emigré. Lesya Ukrainka had died just before the war, Franko
had died before the collapse of Austria-Hungary. Stefanyk soon returned
to silence.
The early enthusiasm for independence produced a large number of
promising and talented young writers who eagerly were adapting futurism
and imaginism and the most modern literary movements to the Ukrainian
scene. Such authors as Pavlo Tychyna (b. 1891) attracted more than
favorable mention and the leading historian of literature, Serhey
Yefremiv, in 1923 could speak glowingly of the groups of younger
authors who were bidding fair to herald a new and still more glorious
period. All this was soon changed.
In Poland some scientific and literary work was still possible. The
Shevchenko Scientific Society was able to continue. A Ukrainian
Scientific Institute was established in Warsaw in 1929 and accomplished
a great deal. Such writers as Bohdan Lepky (b. 1872), professor of
Ukrainian literature at the University of Krakow, was able to continue
writing and a number of promising young authors as Ulas Samchuk
appeared. At the same time the Czechoslovak government encouraged the
formation of a Ukrainian University and Institute in Prague. But it
was hardly the time for fruitful work. The dark shadow of Fascism was
beginning to appear upon the horizon and threatening an overturn of
life as it had long been known.
In the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic the problem of communism
forced itself ever more to the foreground. It became imperative for the
authors to write on those themes and in that manner which was regarded
as politically reliable by the authorities. At first for errors
recantation was regarded as sufficient punishment, but from about 1928,
the Soviet critics denounce in scathing language as bourgeois Ukrainian
nationalists all those authors who went beyond the appointed line and
that line varied with the exigencies of Soviet politics in Moscow.
Some of the writers as Tychyna made their peace with the Soviets
and the Soviet Encyclopedias can speak of his growing revolutionary
optimism in his later works. He had been one of the masters of the
younger generation with his melodic songs on the rebirth of Ukraine.
Now he became another of the Communist poets writing in praise of the
Party and sharply condemning their foes.
On the other hand, Mikola Khvylovy (b. 1893), one of the more talented
of the prose writers, passed on an opposite course. Khvylovy had been
far to the left and had counted himself one of the first Ukrainian
proletarian writers. As the pressure grew, he sought and sought in vain
to establish in Ukrainian literature a reliance and a contact with
Western culture in contrast to the ever increasing dependence upon
Moscow. This was interpreted as a Fascist plan for the development
of Ukraine. Thus A. Khvylya, a Soviet critic, wrote about Khvylovy’s
novel _Wood Snipes_, “Khvylovy carries his heroes on a literary horse
to prove that Soviet Ukraine is not Soviet, that the dictatorship
of the proletariat is not the dictatorship of the proletariat, that
the national policy is only deceit; that the Ukrainian people is
exclusively a benighted, unfree people, that a rebirth is coming, that
finally the party itself is an organization of hypocrites. Khvylovy in
a very talented way sets forth these ideas in the _Wood Snipes_ and
having made such an analysis of our reality proves that the one hope,
which can enkindle millions, bring to the height of a pathos for the
struggle for Ukraine, for the people is national rebirth, the rebirth
of the nation.... In the beginning it is necessary to create firm
cadres of a new Ukrainian tempered intelligentsia. In the beginning
there must come a tempered Ukrainian Longfellow, to lead the Ukrainian
people to the state of another great social movement, and only after
this can there be new economists, new workmen, to lead the economies
and social life of our country to other days.... The only means of
safety is nationalism. It is necessary to see to it, that Thermidor
develop to the creation of a powerful Ukrainian national state. And
there is no doubt that if a Ukrainian ‘communist’ does not do it, a
Russian ‘communist’ will do it, for he will act against him, against
the Ukrainian, in order to hand over to his own Fascist ‘a single
indivisible’ (land). In the minds of the heroes of Khvylovy, the
questions are either for a Russian or a Ukrainian fascism. There is no
third course.”
Confronted with such attacks on his novels and publicistic works,
Khvylovy shot himself on May 13, 1933, and he was only one of a
large number that passed from the literary scene. Serhey Yefremiv,
the literary historian, was liquidated as a writer. Prof. Mikhail
Hrushevsky, the historian and former President of the Ukrainian
National Republic, died in exile. Many others were shot or committed
suicide because the Marxists and the Communists who had hoped for the
development of some independent intellectual physiognomy within Soviet
Ukraine were regarded as equally hostile to the state as were the
bourgeois and the anti-Marxians.
The language was allowed to exist. No one ventured to repeat the words
of Valuyev in the sixties that there never was, is not, and never
will be a Ukrainian language. It was clear, however, that there never
was, is not, and never will be a Ukrainian culture distinct from the
general Soviet culture within the Soviet Union. The measures taken in
the twentieth century go further than any in the nineteenth. At that
time supervision and censorship were primarily of the external form.
Now they are of the internal content. The modern ideological state
cannot tolerate the diversity, the privileges that were granted by the
old fashioned despots, no matter how cruel and tyrannical they were.
Everything must be standardized, must be run strictly according to
pattern, and most of the younger Ukrainian authors in Eastern Ukraine
have learned it to their cost and have been silenced or have submitted.
The Second World War has swept the entire area into its vortex. The
Ukrainians of all groups and classes in both sections of the Ukrainian
lands have learned that the Nazis are but carrying out on a broader
and more terrible scale the same policy that the Germans did in 1918,
the using of Ukraine as a mere granary, and that they have no more
intention than in the past of allowing any human rights or liberties
to the Ukrainian population. Fire and sword, famine and disease are
destroying the population as they did twenty-five years ago. Yet that
period was followed by the brief outburst of the national spirit that
accompanied the brief moment of independence. Then amid the ruined
conditions of the land there suddenly appeared, poets, prose writers,
scholars, men of every intellectual calling. They left their imprint
upon Ukrainian culture and the events of the past years have not been
able to destroy all that they accomplished. Ukrainian literature which
under adversity has developed so well during the past century and a
half cannot have been brought to an untimely end. Its revival depends
upon victory and the triumph of the human spirit over regimentation.
When that moment comes, Ukrainian literature will take its next step
and march hand in hand with the other great literatures of the world.
The only guide to the future is the experience of the past and the
century and a half during which Ukrainian literature has developed into
being the chief expression of the Ukrainian people leads us to expect
even more in the future and to look with confidence at the Ukrainian
genius.
It was a happy instinct that led Kotlyarevsky at the close of the
eighteenth century to put into literary form the speech of millions
of serfs and to revamp the old archaic Church Slavonic so as to form
a modern literary language. It was still more fortunate that he gave
to the new development a democratic flavor and a sympathy for the
downtrodden and the oppressed which have ever since remained as the
fundamental message and keynote of Ukrainian literature.
A half century later, one of the greatest of all Slavonic poets, Taras
Shevchenko, set to work and added to it his own noble conceptions
of the human spirit. Devotion to the cause of his people and to the
highest ideals of human liberty was his especial contribution to the
language which he molded into being, a true poetic language.
From that time Ukrainian literature has not lacked authors of varying
degrees of excellence and of vision to comment from generation to
generation on the aspirations of their people and of humanity. They
have followed the various social movements of the times and they have
broadened their range of interests from the narrow area in which they
lived to include every land where the Ukrainian people have been living
under alien rule.
More than that, they have realized that no literature can live and
develop for itself alone. They have come more and more into contact
with the great movements of world literature. They have felt themselves
a part of the international world of culture, of that brotherhood of
mankind that has been so brutally attacked in the last years. With
each generation the outstanding authors have gained a broader outlook
on life, a closer contact with and a fuller understanding of the best
that was being done in the world. They have worked hard and have
succeeded in placing Ukrainian literature on an equality with the other
literatures of the Slavonic nations and of Europe as a whole.
There is a direct and unswerving line of service to the democratic
ideals of humanity and to the cause of the people from Kotlyarevsky
through Shevchenko and Franko and Lesya Ukrainka to the present time.
It is a line of which the Ukrainian people may well be proud and we
can be sure that their ideals will not die but that in the newer and
better world after the war the goals for which they have struggled
will be realized and that Ukrainian literature and culture will play a
prominent part in the development of the coming centuries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GENERAL
Ukrainian Literature--“The Atheneum,” London, Aug. 29, 1874, No. 2,
444. “Saturday Review,” London, Vol. 39, June, 1875.
Songs of Ukraine--(translations of Ukrainian songs with notes) by F.
F. Livesey, New York, J. M. Dent & Sons; 1916. 175 pp.
Old Folk Songs (translations of Ukrainian songs) by F. R. Livesey,
“Poetry,” Vol. 14, pp. 24-29 (April, 1919).
Ukraine and its Songs, by F. R. Livesey, “Poetry,” Vol. 14, pp.
36-40. (April, 1919).
Ukraine in Literature--“Literary Digest.” Vol. 58, pp. 29-30 (Aug.
31, 1918), reprinted in “Living Age,” Vol. 298, pp. 752-755 (Sept.
21, 1918).
Our Little Ukrainian Cousin by Clare V. Winlow. Page & Co. Boston,
1925.
The Story of Ukraine, by Marie S. Gambal. Ukrainian Workingmen’s
Association, Scranton, Pa., 1932; 102 pp. ill.
Ukrainian Songs and Lyrics, by Honore Ewach, Winnipeg, Canada, 1933.
A Short History of Ukrainian Literature, by Rev. Mikola Kinash,
translated by Stephen Shumeyko, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” issues Feb.
9, 1934 to April 18, 1936, incl.
A Bird’s Eye View of Ukrainian Literature, by Stephen Shumeyko.
Jubilee Book of the Ukrainian National Association, Jersey City, N.
J., 1934, pp.
Spirit of Ukraine (contains chapters on Ukrainian Literature), by D.
Snowyd, New York, 1935, 152 pp. illus.
Brief Survey of Ukrainian Literature, by Arthur Prudden Coleman,
Ukrainian University Society, New York, 1936, pp. 23.
Masha, the Little Goose Girl (stories about Ukraine), by Marguerita
Rudolph, New York, Macmillan, 1939, 64 pp.
INDIVIDUAL AUTHORS
1. Ivan Kotlyarevsky.
The Aeneid of Kotlyarevsky, by Clarence A. Manning, “Classical
Weekly,” Pittsburgh, Pa. Vol. 36. (Dec. 7, 1942)
2. Hrihori Kvitka.
Marusia (a novel) translated by F. R. Livesey, with introduction by
Lord Tweedsmuir: New York, E. P. Dutton & Co. 1940, pp. 219.
3. Taras Shevchenko.
Life--
A South Russian Poet, by Charles Dickens, Jr. (Morfil) “All Year
Around Weekly,” London, May, 1877. Vol. 18, pp. 224-230, No. 440.
Out of a Kozak They Made a Valet, and Out of a Valet a Genius was
Born, by Van Wyck Brooks, “The Freeman,” Vol. 3, Aug. 10, 1921, pp.
526-527.
Taras Shevchenko, Bard of Ukraine (biographical outline with
some translations by Voynich, Semenyna, Hunter) by Prof. Dmytro
Doreshenko of Prague, with preface by Prof. Clarence A. Manning.
United Ukrainian Organizations of the United States, New York,
1936, pp. 59.
Shevchenko and Women, by Dr. Luke Myshuha (translated by W.
Semenyna). New York, 1940, 94 pp.
Taras Shevchenko by Ivan Franko, “Slavonic Review” London, Vol.
III, pp. 110-116.
Works--
Six Lyrics from the Ruthenian of Taras Shevchenko, translated by E.
L. Voynich, London, 1911. E. Mathews, pp. 64.
The Kobzar of Ukraine, by A. J. Hunter, Winnipeg, 1922, 144 pp.
illus.
Taras’ Night, translated by S. Volska and C. E. Beechofer.
Preface of the Hajdamaki, translated by Clarence A. Manning,
Columbia University Course in Literature, New York, 1928, Vol. 10,
pp. 486-489.
’Tis all the Same to Me; Each Day Goes By. The Roaring Dnieper;
Ukraine Today. At the Roadside, and other verses by Shevchenko,
translated by Waldimir Semenyna, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” 1933-1936.
Thoughts of an Exile, translated by Helen Lubach, “Ukrainian Life,”
August, 1940.
4. Panteleimon Kulish.
Orisia (short story) translated by Helen Kinash Siegler, “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” December 5, 1936.
Black Council (Historical Novel of the 17th century), translated by
Stephen Shumeyko. “The Ukrainian Weekly,” August 8, 1942 to September
18, 1943, incl.
5. Marko Vovchok.
Limerivna (short story), translated by T. L. Wissotsky-Kuntz. “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” Dec. 12-19, 1936.
6. Ivan Franko.
Life--
A Voice from Ukraine (biographical sketch and translation of a
number of poems) by Percival Cundy, Roland, Manitoba, 1932, 74 pp.
Ivan Franko, by Prof. Clarence A. Manning. Ukrainian University
Society, New York, 1938, 33 pp.
Life and Works of Ivan Franko, by Stephen Shumeyko. “The Ukrainian
Weekly,” May 11 to August 24, 1940 incl.
Works--
Taras Shevchenko. “Slavonic Review.”
Doctor Bessedwisser (satiric short story) translated by Waldimir
Semenyna, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” July 11, 1936.
Naimyt. Eternal Revolutionist. Great Anniversary and other poems
translated by Waldimir Semenyna, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” Sept.
3,-Oct. 1, 1938, incl.
Moses, (epic poem) translated by Waldimir Semenyna with
biographical sketch by Stephen Shumeyko. New York, 1936, 93 pp.
In the Blacksmith Shop, (short story), translated by John Panchuk,
“The Ukrainian Weekly,” April 3-May 1, 1937.
Abu Kassim’s Slippers (poem) translated by Waldimir Semenyna, “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” Sept. 3-Oct. 1, 1938.
Thorn in the Foot (novelette). Patrimony (novelette). The Legend of
Pilate (sketch). Little Myron (short story). Constitution for Hogs
(short story). The Blue Fox (short story). The Education of Hrytzko
(short story), translated by Stephen Shumeyko. “The Ukrainian
Weekly,” 1940.
The Jay’s Wing (novelette), translated by R. L. Wissotsky-Kuntz.
“The Ukrainian Weekly,” Jan. 10-Feb. 7, 1941.
7. Lesya Ukrainka.
The Babylonian Captivity (drama), translated by S. Volska and C. E.
Beechofer, “Five Russian Plays with one from the Ukrainian,” London,
Trubner & Co.
8. Mikhaylo Kotsyubinsky.
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (novelette), Written in the Book of
Life (short story), translated by Stephen Shumeyko, “The Ukrainian
Weekly,” Jan. 27-March 16, 1940 incl.
Out of the Depths. Praised be Life (short stories), translated by C.
A. Andrusyshen. “The Ukrainian Weekly,” March-April, 1940.
By the Sea (short story) translated by R. V. Orlans, “The Ukrainian
Weekly,” May 2-May 23, 1941, incl.
9. Vasil Stefanyk.
Stefanyk’s Own Story (autobiographical sketch) translated by Stephen
Shumeyko, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” May 20, 1939.
The Burglar. Novel Incident. They Took Him Away. (Short stories),
translated by Stephen Shumeyko, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” Jan. 7-14,
1937, Feb. 27, 1937, Sept. 23, 1939, respectively.
Suicide (short story) translated by C. A. Andrusyshev, “Ukrainian
Life,” June, 1940.
His Sons. Children of War (short stories) translated by Waldimir
Semenyna, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” Oct. 14, 1939, and Nov. 20, 1943,
respectively.
Maple Leaves (short story), translated by R. L. Wissotsky-Kuntz, “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” Feb. 14, 1941.
Their Land (short story), translated by Marie S. Gambal, “Ukrainian
Life,” Sept. 1941.
The Dew (short story) translated by Stephen Davidovich, “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” Jan. 19, 1942.
10. Bohdan Lepky.
A Peaceful Death (short story) translated by Stephen Shumeyko. “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” Oct. 15, 1938.
The Old Man (short story) translated by Stephen Shumeyko. “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” July 23, 1939.
The Flower of Fortune (short story) translated by Stephen Shumeyko,
“The Ukrainian Weekly.”
Visits from the Dead. Ready to Go (short stories) translated by J.
A., “Ukrainian Life,” April and June, 1941, respectively.
Transcriber’s Notes