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Salt Wagoneers in On the Wings of a Song by Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi Summary and translation of excerpts by Helene N. Turkewicz-Sanko, Ph.D. Valka by Volodymyr Shagala. From Stories and Illustrations of Village Life in Western Ukraine. Lviv, Ukraine: Taras Soroka Publisher, 2002:24. Mykhailo Kotsiubinskyi (1864-1913) belongs to a group of writers that marked Ukrainian classical literature. He was bom in the town of Vinnitsia and died in a clinic in Kyiv shortly before World War I. At the age of fourteen, he lost his father and was com pelled to help his mother raise his four brothers and sisters. He loved to read and devoted most of his free time to self-education. In 1890, he met Ivan Franko in Lviv. Kotsiubynskyi’s first work appeared in the children’s magazine, Dzvinok (The Bell), soon fol lowed by his first story, "Andryi Soloveiko or Learning is Light and Ignorance is Darkness." It was the first story of a cycle of sketches on country life in which Kotsiubynskyi sought to recreate the realities of his time, describing the hardships of the village poor. A collection of his works in translation ap peared in 1980 under the title Fata Morgana and Other Stories} In the introduction, Vasyl Yaremenko states that Fata Morgana (1903-1910) is “simultane ously a political and artistic documentation of national history.” Among the stories in this collection we find the following titles: Те Koptior," "The Witch," "The Chrystalis," "At a High Price," "On the Rocks," "The Duel," "Apple Blossoms," "Laughter," "He is Com ing," "Persona Grate," "Intermezzo," "The Dream," "The Birthday Present," "The Horses Are Not to Blame," and "In Praise of Life." In the twentieth century Kotsiubynskyi also became known for creating works which were adapted as screenplays. Among these were The Fir Tree (1891) and Shadows o f Forgotten Ancestors (1911). His short story "On the Wings of a Song," is an example of the close relationship that exists be tween Ukrainian oral tradition and Ukrainian classical literature. The theme is Salt and the life of Ukrainian Salt Wagoneers who traced the network of highways in Ukraine and beyond its borders from the Black Sea all the way to Poltava and Kyiv, then eastward towards the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea, and finally westward towards the Carpathian Mountains and the Baltic Sea.2 In what follows, the reader will find a free translation of parts of the author’s text as well as the translation of the song that inspired him. The author begins his short story entitled “On the Wings of a Song ” 3 with a meditation on the feel ing of homesickness: Have you ever felt this acute feeling of home sickness after a long stay abroad, so sharp and deep that it turns to a physical pain? Are you familiar with this psychological state o f mind that makes you react at a simple sound o f your native tongue...? [Helene N. Turkewicz-Sanko, translator] What is so significant about this brief excerpt is that it is also a poem in prose, one closely related to other art forms, such as on oil painting or an aquarelle. It can also be compared to a musical composition, a sort of sonata with a recurring melody. But its primary form was an entry in his personal travel diary of the year 1895. Not surprisingly, this entry reached the heights of world masterpieces of literature, both for its content as well as its form. In 1895, the author found himself traveling by the river Prut in Southern Bessarabia, on the border 14 “Н А Ш Е Ж И Т Т Я ”, В Е Р Е С Е Н Ь 2003 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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