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UKRAINIAN WOMAN OUR ENGLISH COLUMN 100th Anniversary of a Book The Ukrainians throughout the world are noting this year the one hundredth anniversary of one book, titled “Folk Stories,” w rit ten by M arko Vovchok and pub lished in 1857 in St. Petersburg. It then created a great sensation in intellectual circles of U kraine and Russia. The Central Ukraine which had gradually been subjugated by Russia and become its part, had also inherited from the Czars, as a parcel with enslavement, an other .evil — the serfdom. Thus the peasants of Ukraine had been since 1783 attached to the land of proprietors, (after the Russian model. One may imagine the suf ferings of the poor serfs under the system of serfdom which dif fered from the slavery in the name only. Strenuous toil and ex trem e poverty, license of the land lords that frequently rent the families apart and perverted men’s souls, denoted this feudal turpitude. The liberal circles of Russia of th at time saw this evil and were trying to combat the 'Calamity. However, under despotic regime of the Czars the rich landlords represented a great power. Still the sentim ent against the serfdom within the educated classes was grow ing and was searching for new ways of expression. One of these quests was this little book by M arko Vovchok. M arko Vovchok was the pseu donym of M aria Markovich. A Ukrainian, born .in Rjussia, in 1834, but educated a t Kharkiv, Ukraine, she m arried in Orel, Russia, Opanas Markovich, a U k rainian patriot and political exile. Opanas knew well the Ukrainian language, and was an enthusias tic ethnographer, through whom M aria similarly became interest ed in ethnography and subse quently began to study the life and the language of forgotten U k rainian peasants. She liked immensely to listen to Ukrainian songs, notaibly lul'la- bys, and especially to life stories narrated by women which stories she masterfully rendered in her sketches. In the stories she reveal ed the little dramas of the com mon people which she relived and introduced into the Ukrainian and later into the Russian literature. There is a story of an ill child whose m other was unable to' take care of him since she was driven into the fields. The child, left alone died, his m other went in sane. Or, another child was torn away from his mother and “do nated” by one landlord to anoth er. Or, a girl, in her early teens, was dragged as a concubine to an old landlord just because he liked her. Many episodes of simi lar nature served as themes for this celebrated authoress, sub jects when human dignity had been tram pled down, or where the strongest family ties had been rent asunder, where the inner most feelings had been crushed .mercilessly. M arko Vovchok por- tra 3 ^ed many such personag'es and delineated their plight. Just one hundred years back this first collection of these fam ous stories were printed. The suc cess of this collection was imme diate and colossal. The sentim ent of the liberal educated classes that strongly felt for liberation of enslaved peasants found in these stories vivid pictures of the wretchedness. Ivan Turgenev, the renowned Russian w riter, translated Vov- chok’s stories into Russian and they w ere very favorably received by Russian literary critics. The book won wide circulation. It reached the best homes of educat ed and well-to-do as well as the poor families, like the teachers of th at time. M arko Vovchok’s book drew attention to human suffer ings under serfdom and evoked general sympathy. And when in 1861 Czar Alexander II issued a ukase abolishing serfdom, this a t tainm ent was ascribed also to M arko Vovchok, sometimes re ferred to as Ukrainian H arriet Beecher Stowe. The stories of Vovchok have not become old-fashioned or ob solete in the course of a century. They have been read and reread as fine and interesting sketches during all these eventful years which fact is the best proof of their lasting worth. The expres sive presentation and the beauti ful language made the book a classic in Ukrainian literature. M arko Vovchok had subse quently w ritten many other sto ries, and a short novel ‘Tnstitut- ka” among them , which had also been arranged for the stage. And her novel “M arussya,” in French, is still on the book-list for the schools of France. However, her popular sketches, published by Pantaleymton Ku- lish, also an eminent Ukrainian author, in 1857, have been the most significant of all her work. They attained the objects that seemed impossible to reach. Therefore, the Ukrainians all over the world, and in the Free W orld in particular, are m ark ing now the centenary of her first little book. L. B. The path traversed by the Ukrainian woman is described in the book THE WOMAN OF UKRAINE Published by the Ukrainian National W omen’s League of America $1.00
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