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“НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ВЕРЕСЕНЬ 2016 WWW.UNWLA.ORG 11 nacular from the Poltava region in Russian Ukraine and enriched by vocabulary and usage from Galicia. He was awarded an honorary doc- torate in 1906 by Kharkhiv University for his work in philology. Franko collected much source material on the folklore and ethnography of Galician Ukrain- ians, writing a series of studies on folk beliefs, clothing, crafts, and food. His Studies of Ukrain- ian Folk Songs , first published in three volumes of the Zapysky of the Shevchenko Scientific So- ciety and then separately in 1913, represents a seminal contribution to the field of folklore stud- ies. The Legacy Even this cursory look at Franko’s life and writ- ings shows a person of outstanding talent, prodi- gious capacity for work, wide-ranging knowledge and interests. He was a poet, prose writer, drama- tist, literary historian, translator, journalist and publisher, social critic, and civic activist. Franko’s talent, like Shevchenko’s, was recognized in his life-time not only by his compatriots but also by the intelligentsia of other nationalities in Europe. Ukrainians, however, have additional rea- sons to honor Franko: Like Shevchenko, Franko had a major impact on the formation of Ukrainian national identity. In the Habsburg Empire of the second half of the 19th century, many questions of national identity had not been yet definitively an- swered. Did the people of Bukovina, Carpatho- Ruthenia, and Galicia share the same nationality? Should their written language be based on Church Slavonic or on the language spoken by the people? Were these people in the Habsburg Empire the same nationality as the people who called them- selves Ukrainians in the Russian Empire? This is not the place to discuss at length how the Ruthe- nians in the Habsburg Empire became a fully con- scious Ukrainian nation with a fully developed literary language based on the vernacular and a network of cultural and economic institutions. Suffice it to say that Ivan Franko had a major in- fluence on this development. IVAN FRANKO AND THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT While many people are familiar with Franko’s poetry, politics, and satirical work, relatively few know of his commitment to the early Ukrainian women’s movement. The following is excerpted from an arti- cle written by UNWLA president and Our Life editor Lydia Burachynska and was published in the June 1966 issue of Our Life. Ivan Franko, the 20th century Ukrainian literary genius, gave us the bounty of his literary creativity, with a whole portrait gallery of inter- esting women. But Ukrainian women have a spe- cial reason for paying tribute to this man, for he, more than anyone else at the time, was instru- mental in helping the pioneers of the Ukrainian organized women’s movement. Ivan Franko had a tremendous influence on the social consciousness of his time, and one of his primary concerns was raising women’s social status. His work entitled “The Serfdom of Women as Reflected in Folksongs,” published in 1883, traced all the social mores which, through the years, had relegated women to a subservient role in the social structure. In his literary works, his heroines were . . . women who fought for their social rights and human dignity. Franko also helped the cause directly through his encouragement and frequent notices in the press. His greatest contribution, however, was his editorial work on the almanac “The First Wreath.” This valuable collection of works of con- temporary women writers . . . appeared in 1887 through the efforts of N. Kobrynska and another pioneer of the women’s movement, Olena Pchilka. Franko served in the capacity of advisor in the selection of material and assisted with the tech- nical work on the project.
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