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18 WWW.UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛИПЕНЬ-СЕРПЕНЬ 2015 Two Passions of Nataliya Kobrynska The year of 2015 marks the 160th anniversary of Nataliya Kobryn- ska’s birth. Kobrynska was raised in a family rich in literary talent (both her grandfather and her father popularized works of Ukrainian literature as well as wrote their own), but also at a time when Ukrainian women had no access to university education. It was therefore no accident that literature and the struggle for women’s rights became her two lifelong passions. At different points in her life, Kobrynska collected signatures on a petition for women’s right to higher education; solicited and published women’s writing (including the first collection of works by women from all over Ukraine, The First Gar- land ); advocated for more efficient use of women’s time spent on housework; established publishing houses specializing in women’s writing; and created a society for Ukrainian women activists. Kobrynska was convinced that literature was the most suitable vehicle for the spread of feminist ideas among Ukrainian wom- en because it could reach women where they were and hold up a realistic mirror to the conditions of their lives. For a fledgling Ukrainian women’s movement, literature was also a relatively inex- pensive way to popularize their ideas. Having made literature her primary means of political advocacy, Kobrynska not surprisingly gave preference to realist writing. Therefore, much of her own work realistically portrays her society’s treatment of women of various classes—from peasants to intelligentsia. She also advised other women writers to keep to the realist mode. Yet the literary artist in her prompted Kobrynska to explore other styles as well, and her later works experiment with various modernist trends such as symbolism and expressionism. The short sto- ry featured below, “The Tempest,” is one such work. It is a modernist treatment of the topic that had fasci- nated Kobrynska throughout her life—the destructive, almost demonic forces of nature and the human struggle against them, as reflected in Ukrainian folk beliefs. The tempest in the story appears as an all- powerful creature that wages war against humans and the fruit of their labor—their dwellings and fields— yet its evil plans are successfully counteracted by the forces of light epitomized in the church bell and the priestlike intersession of Mykhaylo Debrovy. –Olesia Wallo Nataliya Kobrynska The Tempest (1904) The sun was blazing in the glowing, inert azure of the sky. It had been flaming since early morning, and the farther south it went, the more penetrating it became, burning with a scorching, golden fire. A sultry heat wave flooded all corners of the earth; the clear blue sky, like a searingly hot glass dome in a glassworks, stretched in all direc- tions and pressed down upon the heavy, torrid, unmoving air. Grainfields, an endless sea of molten gold, stood transfixed in quiet trepidation; crimson poppies drooped their heads in sombre contem- plation; and blue corn-flowers looked around si- lently and timorously, with widely opened eyes. The mountains, as if wishing to hide from something menacing in the air, receded behind a hazy mist. A dreamy lake, overgrown with reeds, lan- guished, torpid and spiritless. Swallows folded their wings, and the shrieks of noisy seagulls died in their throats. On the broad meadows, clusters of clover blossoms, their petals faded and curling, listened attentively; the air was heavy with a numbing desolation, an alarming stillness. Exhausted by the heat, a man wiped his brow with his sleeve and gazed fearfully at the sun; the cattle in the pasture grew restless and scattered in all direc- tions. The sun was baking, burning, searing. The cracked ground was disintegrating, fracturing into wheels and stars; the grass was wilting, turning yellow; and, through the wilted leaves of the trees, the sun etched the earth with brilliant, fiery, pat- terns. And then, on the western horizon, there loomed a huge, dark, threatening mass. Lightning fragments flashed like arrows. The air was ominously calm and stifling, and a black bulkhead, growing and expanding, forced its way across the sky. Everything stirred.
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