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From Heart to Heart A review by Marta Tamawsky Hryts ’ko Hryhorenko, Lesya Ukrainka. From H eart to H eart: Women ys Voices in Ukrainian Literature, 4. Roma Franko, tr. Sonia Morrris, ed. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Language Lanterns 1999. 471 pages. ISBN 0- 9683899-3-7. Hryts’ko Hryhorenko, like a Ukrainian George Sand, wrote under a male pseudonym. Her real name was Oleksandra Sudovshchykova Kosach (1867- 1924), and she was related by marriage to the other author of this book, Lesya Ukrainka, whose real name was Larysa Kosach Kvitka (1871-1913). Both of these women grew up in the same intellectual environment dominated by Mykhailo Drahomanov and his sister Olena Pchilka; both belonged to the literary circle “Pleiada” organized by Larysa and her brother (Oleksandra’s future husband) Mykhailo Kosach (Obachnyi). Larysa Kosach developed into a major Ukrainian poet and playwright, one who has an assured place among the classics of Ukrainian literature; Hryts’ko Hryhorenko is a minor writer remembered primarily by literary historians. From Heart to Heart contains translations of eighteen short stories or sketches by Hryhorenko and eighteen prose pieces by Ukrainka. Hryhorenko’s stories deal primarily with the lives of peasants. Written in a realistic style, they are full of ethnographic details and will be of considerable interest to people who study the manners and customs of the Ukrainian peasantry in the nineteenth century. The role of women in this traditional society, how they are seen by others and how they see themselves, will be of special interest to feminist historians. Hryhorenko’s stories are weak in composition: they do not hold the reader’s interest by developing a plot; neither do they provide deeper psychological insights into the lives of their heroes. What seems unusual and to the author’s credit, however, is the complete absence of idealization, sentimentality, melodrama, or hidden political agenda. Lesya Ukrainka’s reputation is not based on her prose: it is her poetry and her dramatic works that brought her fame. And yet the best and most interesting works in this collection are Lesya’s, and for a variety of reasons. The story “By the Sea,” for example, not unlike the tales by Hryhorenko, will be of interest to those who study manners and customs of the nineteenth century. But in this case it is the manners and customs of the Russian aristocracy, and these are but a background to a psychological study of two different women characters. “The Farewell,” a dialogue between a young man and a woman (written circa 1896 and first published in 1928), is a love scene reminiscent and worthy of Ernest Hemmingway in its laconic understatement and tight composition. The stories “The Mistake,” “The Conversation,” “Sonorous Strings,” and even the children’s fable “The Moth” develop themes which are repeated later in the writer’s poetry and dramas: the choice between private happiness and a social cause, between risky action and safe passivity, between love and freedom, and, especially for a woman, a choice between domestic happiness and a dedication to art. Moreover, Ukrainka’s stories shed additional light on her own life and help us understand the psychological motives of her creativity. Language Lanterns is to be commended for having issued four well-made volumes of Ukrainian women’s writings within a short period of two years. This fourth volumne, like the earlier ones, would have benefited from more careful editing. Such unfortunate and compromising errors as “Mills” and “Honkur” (both on page 436) should have been prevented. The references in Lesya Ukrainka’s story are to the British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-73) and to the French writers, the brothers Edmond (1822-96) and Jules (1830-70) Goncourt. Editor’s note: This review was previously published in World Literature Today (Winter 2001, 75:1, p. 175) and is reprinted here with the author’s permission.
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