Chapter FIFTEEN: After 1918

The brief independence of the Ukrainian National Republic and its fall could not fail to have catastrophic results upon the literature. The whole trend of Ukrainian literary development had been to develop along those lines on which the other literatures of the world had travelled. There had been a constant effort to establish close contact between the Ukrainians in Russia and those in Austria-Hungary. Finally there had come with Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, and the later authors at the very end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, a group of writers and critics who were familiar with what was going on abroad and had striven to acclimate at home the new methods and ideas as they were rising to prominence.

All that was changed. New barriers were erected between the different parts of the dismembered country and these barriers were even more impenetrable than those which had been erected by the severe decrees of Russia at the middle of the nineteenth century. Then it was possible for the Ukrainian authors in Russia to print in Galicia and have their works smuggled back into Russian Ukraine. Now the censorship was ruthless and efficient. Some of the authors as Oles, the last of the great names who remained alive, emigrated to Prague to live the sterile life of an emigré. Lesya Ukrainka had died just before the war, Franko had died before the collapse of Austria-Hungary. Stefanyk soon returned to silence.

The early enthusiasm for independence produced a large number of promising and talented young writers who eagerly were adapting futurism and imaginism and the most modern literary movements to the Ukrainian scene. Such authors as Pavlo Tychyna (b. 1891) attracted more than favorable mention and the leading historian of literature, Serhey Yefremiv, in 1923 could speak glowingly of the groups of younger authors who were bidding fair to herald a new and still more glorious period. All this was soon changed.

In Poland some scientific and literary work was still possible. The Shevchenko Scientific Society was able to continue. A Ukrainian Scientific Institute was established in Warsaw in 1929 and accomplished a great deal. Such writers as Bohdan Lepky (b. 1872), professor of Ukrainian literature at the University of Krakow, was able to continue writing and a number of promising young authors as Ulas Samchuk appeared. At the same time the Czechoslovak government encouraged the formation of a Ukrainian University and Institute in Prague. But it was hardly the time for fruitful work. The dark shadow of Fascism was beginning to appear upon the horizon and threatening an overturn of life as it had long been known.

In the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic the problem of communism forced itself ever more to the foreground. It became imperative for the authors to write on those themes and in that manner which was regarded as politically reliable by the authorities. At first for errors recantation was regarded as sufficient punishment, but from about 1928, the Soviet critics denounce in scathing language as bourgeois Ukrainian nationalists all those authors who went beyond the appointed line and that line varied with the exigencies of Soviet politics in Moscow.

Some of the writers as Tychyna made their peace with the Soviets and the Soviet Encyclopedias can speak of his growing revolutionary optimism in his later works. He had been one of the masters of the younger generation with his melodic songs on the rebirth of Ukraine. Now he became another of the Communist poets writing in praise of the Party and sharply condemning their foes.

On the other hand, Mikola Khvylovy (b. 1893), one of the more talented of the prose writers, passed on an opposite course. Khvylovy had been far to the left and had counted himself one of the first Ukrainian proletarian writers. As the pressure grew, he sought and sought in vain to establish in Ukrainian literature a reliance and a contact with Western culture in contrast to the ever increasing dependence upon Moscow. This was interpreted as a Fascist plan for the development of Ukraine. Thus A. Khvylya, a Soviet critic, wrote about Khvylovy’s novel _Wood Snipes_, “Khvylovy carries his heroes on a literary horse to prove that Soviet Ukraine is not Soviet, that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not the dictatorship of the proletariat, that the national policy is only deceit; that the Ukrainian people is exclusively a benighted, unfree people, that a rebirth is coming, that finally the party itself is an organization of hypocrites. Khvylovy in a very talented way sets forth these ideas in the _Wood Snipes_ and having made such an analysis of our reality proves that the one hope, which can enkindle millions, bring to the height of a pathos for the struggle for Ukraine, for the people is national rebirth, the rebirth of the nation.... In the beginning it is necessary to create firm cadres of a new Ukrainian tempered intelligentsia. In the beginning there must come a tempered Ukrainian Longfellow, to lead the Ukrainian people to the state of another great social movement, and only after this can there be new economists, new workmen, to lead the economies and social life of our country to other days.... The only means of safety is nationalism. It is necessary to see to it, that Thermidor develop to the creation of a powerful Ukrainian national state. And there is no doubt that if a Ukrainian ‘communist’ does not do it, a Russian ‘communist’ will do it, for he will act against him, against the Ukrainian, in order to hand over to his own Fascist ‘a single indivisible’ (land). In the minds of the heroes of Khvylovy, the questions are either for a Russian or a Ukrainian fascism. There is no third course.”

Confronted with such attacks on his novels and publicistic works, Khvylovy shot himself on May 13, 1933, and he was only one of a large number that passed from the literary scene. Serhey Yefremiv, the literary historian, was liquidated as a writer. Prof. Mikhail Hrushevsky, the historian and former President of the Ukrainian National Republic, died in exile. Many others were shot or committed suicide because the Marxists and the Communists who had hoped for the development of some independent intellectual physiognomy within Soviet Ukraine were regarded as equally hostile to the state as were the bourgeois and the anti-Marxians.

The language was allowed to exist. No one ventured to repeat the words of Valuyev in the sixties that there never was, is not, and never will be a Ukrainian language. It was clear, however, that there never was, is not, and never will be a Ukrainian culture distinct from the general Soviet culture within the Soviet Union. The measures taken in the twentieth century go further than any in the nineteenth. At that time supervision and censorship were primarily of the external form. Now they are of the internal content. The modern ideological state cannot tolerate the diversity, the privileges that were granted by the old fashioned despots, no matter how cruel and tyrannical they were. Everything must be standardized, must be run strictly according to pattern, and most of the younger Ukrainian authors in Eastern Ukraine have learned it to their cost and have been silenced or have submitted.

The Second World War has swept the entire area into its vortex. The Ukrainians of all groups and classes in both sections of the Ukrainian lands have learned that the Nazis are but carrying out on a broader and more terrible scale the same policy that the Germans did in 1918, the using of Ukraine as a mere granary, and that they have no more intention than in the past of allowing any human rights or liberties to the Ukrainian population. Fire and sword, famine and disease are destroying the population as they did twenty-five years ago. Yet that period was followed by the brief outburst of the national spirit that accompanied the brief moment of independence. Then amid the ruined conditions of the land there suddenly appeared, poets, prose writers, scholars, men of every intellectual calling. They left their imprint upon Ukrainian culture and the events of the past years have not been able to destroy all that they accomplished. Ukrainian literature which under adversity has developed so well during the past century and a half cannot have been brought to an untimely end. Its revival depends upon victory and the triumph of the human spirit over regimentation. When that moment comes, Ukrainian literature will take its next step and march hand in hand with the other great literatures of the world.

The only guide to the future is the experience of the past and the century and a half during which Ukrainian literature has developed into being the chief expression of the Ukrainian people leads us to expect even more in the future and to look with confidence at the Ukrainian genius.

It was a happy instinct that led Kotlyarevsky at the close of the eighteenth century to put into literary form the speech of millions of serfs and to revamp the old archaic Church Slavonic so as to form a modern literary language. It was still more fortunate that he gave to the new development a democratic flavor and a sympathy for the downtrodden and the oppressed which have ever since remained as the fundamental message and keynote of Ukrainian literature.

A half century later, one of the greatest of all Slavonic poets, Taras Shevchenko, set to work and added to it his own noble conceptions of the human spirit. Devotion to the cause of his people and to the highest ideals of human liberty was his especial contribution to the language which he molded into being, a true poetic language.

From that time Ukrainian literature has not lacked authors of varying degrees of excellence and of vision to comment from generation to generation on the aspirations of their people and of humanity. They have followed the various social movements of the times and they have broadened their range of interests from the narrow area in which they lived to include every land where the Ukrainian people have been living under alien rule.

More than that, they have realized that no literature can live and develop for itself alone. They have come more and more into contact with the great movements of world literature. They have felt themselves a part of the international world of culture, of that brotherhood of mankind that has been so brutally attacked in the last years. With each generation the outstanding authors have gained a broader outlook on life, a closer contact with and a fuller understanding of the best that was being done in the world. They have worked hard and have succeeded in placing Ukrainian literature on an equality with the other literatures of the Slavonic nations and of Europe as a whole.

There is a direct and unswerving line of service to the democratic ideals of humanity and to the cause of the people from Kotlyarevsky through Shevchenko and Franko and Lesya Ukrainka to the present time. It is a line of which the Ukrainian people may well be proud and we can be sure that their ideals will not die but that in the newer and better world after the war the goals for which they have struggled will be realized and that Ukrainian literature and culture will play a prominent part in the development of the coming centuries.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

GENERAL

Ukrainian Literature--“The Atheneum,” London, Aug. 29, 1874, No. 2,
444. “Saturday Review,” London, Vol. 39, June, 1875.

Songs of Ukraine--(translations of Ukrainian songs with notes) by F.
F. Livesey, New York, J. M. Dent & Sons; 1916. 175 pp.

Old Folk Songs (translations of Ukrainian songs) by F. R. Livesey,
“Poetry,” Vol. 14, pp. 24-29 (April, 1919).

Ukraine and its Songs, by F. R. Livesey, “Poetry,” Vol. 14, pp.
36-40. (April, 1919).

Ukraine in Literature--“Literary Digest.” Vol. 58, pp. 29-30 (Aug.
31, 1918), reprinted in “Living Age,” Vol. 298, pp. 752-755 (Sept.
21, 1918).

Our Little Ukrainian Cousin by Clare V. Winlow. Page & Co. Boston,
1925.

The Story of Ukraine, by Marie S. Gambal. Ukrainian Workingmen’s
Association, Scranton, Pa., 1932; 102 pp. ill.

Ukrainian Songs and Lyrics, by Honore Ewach, Winnipeg, Canada, 1933.

A Short History of Ukrainian Literature, by Rev. Mikola Kinash,
translated by Stephen Shumeyko, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” issues Feb.
9, 1934 to April 18, 1936, incl.

A Bird’s Eye View of Ukrainian Literature, by Stephen Shumeyko.
Jubilee Book of the Ukrainian National Association, Jersey City, N.
J., 1934, pp.

Spirit of Ukraine (contains chapters on Ukrainian Literature), by D.
Snowyd, New York, 1935, 152 pp. illus.

Brief Survey of Ukrainian Literature, by Arthur Prudden Coleman,
Ukrainian University Society, New York, 1936, pp. 23.

Masha, the Little Goose Girl (stories about Ukraine), by Marguerita
Rudolph, New York, Macmillan, 1939, 64 pp.

INDIVIDUAL AUTHORS

1. Ivan Kotlyarevsky.

The Aeneid of Kotlyarevsky, by Clarence A. Manning, “Classical
Weekly,” Pittsburgh, Pa. Vol. 36. (Dec. 7, 1942)

2. Hrihori Kvitka.

Marusia (a novel) translated by F. R. Livesey, with introduction by
Lord Tweedsmuir: New York, E. P. Dutton & Co. 1940, pp. 219.

3. Taras Shevchenko.

Life--

A South Russian Poet, by Charles Dickens, Jr. (Morfil) “All Year
Around Weekly,” London, May, 1877. Vol. 18, pp. 224-230, No. 440.

Out of a Kozak They Made a Valet, and Out of a Valet a Genius was
Born, by Van Wyck Brooks, “The Freeman,” Vol. 3, Aug. 10, 1921, pp.
526-527.

Taras Shevchenko, Bard of Ukraine (biographical outline with
some translations by Voynich, Semenyna, Hunter) by Prof. Dmytro
Doreshenko of Prague, with preface by Prof. Clarence A. Manning.
United Ukrainian Organizations of the United States, New York,
1936, pp. 59.

Shevchenko and Women, by Dr. Luke Myshuha (translated by W.
Semenyna). New York, 1940, 94 pp.

Taras Shevchenko by Ivan Franko, “Slavonic Review” London, Vol.
III, pp. 110-116.

Works--

Six Lyrics from the Ruthenian of Taras Shevchenko, translated by E.
L. Voynich, London, 1911. E. Mathews, pp. 64.

The Kobzar of Ukraine, by A. J. Hunter, Winnipeg, 1922, 144 pp.
illus.

Taras’ Night, translated by S. Volska and C. E. Beechofer.

Preface of the Hajdamaki, translated by Clarence A. Manning,
Columbia University Course in Literature, New York, 1928, Vol. 10,
pp. 486-489.

’Tis all the Same to Me; Each Day Goes By. The Roaring Dnieper;
Ukraine Today. At the Roadside, and other verses by Shevchenko,
translated by Waldimir Semenyna, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” 1933-1936.

Thoughts of an Exile, translated by Helen Lubach, “Ukrainian Life,”
August, 1940.

4. Panteleimon Kulish.

Orisia (short story) translated by Helen Kinash Siegler, “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” December 5, 1936.

Black Council (Historical Novel of the 17th century), translated by
Stephen Shumeyko. “The Ukrainian Weekly,” August 8, 1942 to September
18, 1943, incl.

5. Marko Vovchok.

Limerivna (short story), translated by T. L. Wissotsky-Kuntz. “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” Dec. 12-19, 1936.

6. Ivan Franko.

Life--

A Voice from Ukraine (biographical sketch and translation of a
number of poems) by Percival Cundy, Roland, Manitoba, 1932, 74 pp.

Ivan Franko, by Prof. Clarence A. Manning. Ukrainian University
Society, New York, 1938, 33 pp.

Life and Works of Ivan Franko, by Stephen Shumeyko. “The Ukrainian
Weekly,” May 11 to August 24, 1940 incl.

Works--

Taras Shevchenko. “Slavonic Review.”

Doctor Bessedwisser (satiric short story) translated by Waldimir
Semenyna, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” July 11, 1936.

Naimyt. Eternal Revolutionist. Great Anniversary and other poems
translated by Waldimir Semenyna, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” Sept.
3,-Oct. 1, 1938, incl.

Moses, (epic poem) translated by Waldimir Semenyna with
biographical sketch by Stephen Shumeyko. New York, 1936, 93 pp.

In the Blacksmith Shop, (short story), translated by John Panchuk,
“The Ukrainian Weekly,” April 3-May 1, 1937.

Abu Kassim’s Slippers (poem) translated by Waldimir Semenyna, “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” Sept. 3-Oct. 1, 1938.

Thorn in the Foot (novelette). Patrimony (novelette). The Legend of
Pilate (sketch). Little Myron (short story). Constitution for Hogs
(short story). The Blue Fox (short story). The Education of Hrytzko
(short story), translated by Stephen Shumeyko. “The Ukrainian
Weekly,” 1940.

The Jay’s Wing (novelette), translated by R. L. Wissotsky-Kuntz.
“The Ukrainian Weekly,” Jan. 10-Feb. 7, 1941.

7. Lesya Ukrainka.

The Babylonian Captivity (drama), translated by S. Volska and C. E.
Beechofer, “Five Russian Plays with one from the Ukrainian,” London,
Trubner & Co.

8. Mikhaylo Kotsyubinsky.

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (novelette), Written in the Book of
Life (short story), translated by Stephen Shumeyko, “The Ukrainian
Weekly,” Jan. 27-March 16, 1940 incl.

Out of the Depths. Praised be Life (short stories), translated by C.
A. Andrusyshen. “The Ukrainian Weekly,” March-April, 1940.

By the Sea (short story) translated by R. V. Orlans, “The Ukrainian
Weekly,” May 2-May 23, 1941, incl.

9. Vasil Stefanyk.

Stefanyk’s Own Story (autobiographical sketch) translated by Stephen
Shumeyko, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” May 20, 1939.

The Burglar. Novel Incident. They Took Him Away. (Short stories),
translated by Stephen Shumeyko, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” Jan. 7-14,
1937, Feb. 27, 1937, Sept. 23, 1939, respectively.

Suicide (short story) translated by C. A. Andrusyshev, “Ukrainian
Life,” June, 1940.

His Sons. Children of War (short stories) translated by Waldimir
Semenyna, “The Ukrainian Weekly,” Oct. 14, 1939, and Nov. 20, 1943,
respectively.

Maple Leaves (short story), translated by R. L. Wissotsky-Kuntz, “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” Feb. 14, 1941.

Their Land (short story), translated by Marie S. Gambal, “Ukrainian
Life,” Sept. 1941.

The Dew (short story) translated by Stephen Davidovich, “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” Jan. 19, 1942.

10. Bohdan Lepky.

A Peaceful Death (short story) translated by Stephen Shumeyko. “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” Oct. 15, 1938.

The Old Man (short story) translated by Stephen Shumeyko. “The
Ukrainian Weekly,” July 23, 1939.

The Flower of Fortune (short story) translated by Stephen Shumeyko,
“The Ukrainian Weekly.”

Visits from the Dead. Ready to Go (short stories) translated by J.
A., “Ukrainian Life,” April and June, 1941, respectively.

Transcriber’s Notes

Spellings of proper nouns have been left as-is save as noted.
Inconsistent spelling of “folksongs”/“folk songs”/“folk-songs” has
been retained.
Use of “as” for “such as” has been retained.
Added Foreword and Introduction to Table of Contents.
p. 8 changed “indefencible” to “indefensible”
p. 12 changed “,” to “.” in “Poland. At about”
p. 12 changed “sucesses” to “successes”
p. 15 changed “innnovations” to “innovations”
p. 17 changed “right” to “rights” in “rights and privileges”
p. 19 changed “prentensions” to “pretensions”
p. 20 the close of the quote beginning “The greatest truth...” has
been left as-is
p. 21 changed “.” to “,” in “_one’s self_, _A friendly_”
p. 25 changed “Poltave” to “Poltava” in “theatre at Poltava”
p. 27 changed “the” to “that” in “forget that Kotlyarevsky”
p. 28 changed “Kotylarevsky’s” to “Kotlyarevsky’s”
p. 28 changed “naivite” to “naivete”
p. 28 added period to end of quoted stanza
p. 31 changed “Shakhovoskoy” to “Shakhovskoy” in “Shakhovskoy did not
know”
p. 32 changed “Shakhovoskoy” to “Shakhovskoy” (twice)
p. 35 changed “Kotleyarevsky” to “Kotlyarevsky”
p. 35 changed “penname” to “pen name”
p. 36 changed “countryment” to “countrymen”
p. 37 changed “skilfull” to “skillful”
p. 42 changed “appointd” to “appointed”
p. 43 changed “introuced” to “introduced”
p. 43 changed “Bulmer-Lytton” to “Bulwer-Lytton”
p. 44 changed “incluring” to “including”
p. 47 italicized “_Perebenda_”
p. 47 changed “These” to “There” in “There is less of”
p. 47 changed “,” to “.” in “passing of time. Shevchenko”
p. 52 changed “earliier” to “earlier”
p. 55 changed “awakend” to “awakened”
p. 60 added “in” before “1862”
p. 61 changed “?” to “.” in “That question was still to be answered.”
p. 68 changed “Russiian” to “Russian”
p. 72 changed “fougth” to “fought”
p. 72 changed “opening” to “opened” in “Maria Theresa opened in
Vienna”
p. 73 added “of” in “before the time of Kotlyarevsky”
p. 75 changed “desipte” to “despite”
p. 79 changed “one” to “on” in “on the other hand”
p. 86 changed “Franco” to “Franko”
p. 87 changed “time” to “times” and “poems” to “poem” in “at times as
in his poem _Ukraine_”
p. 92 italicized “_I_” in “_I hope against hope_”
p. 92 removed “.” following “without a name”
p. 92 changed “Artenis” to “Artemis”
p. 98 changed “Sketches” to “sketches”
p. 98 changed “finally chiselled” to “finely chiseled”
p. 100 changed “,” to “.” in “loses all contact with them. He”
p. 101 changed “seeemd” to “seemed”
p. 104 changed “tooks” to “took” in “took its rise”
p. 106 changed “Stefanik” to “Stefanyk”
p. 107 changed “an” to “a” in “like a female”
p. 119 changed “Czechslovak” to “Czechoslovak”
p. 119 removed comma following “Mikola Khvylovy”
p. 120 changed “physiogonomy” to “physiognomy”
p. 121 changed “down trodden” to “downtrodden”
p. 123 removed “1.” from “GENERAL” header
p. 123 changed “,” to “.” following “(April, 1919).”
p. 123 changed “Ukrzinian Natiokal” to “Ukrainian National”
p. 123 page range is missing for “A Bird’s Eye View of Ukrainian
Literature”
p. 124 added close quotes to “The Ukrainian Weekly”
p. 125 changed “.” to “--” following “Life” and “Works”
p. 126 added close quotes to “Five Russian Plays with one from the
Ukrainian”
p. 126 changed “Michael” to “Mikhaylo”
p. 126 removed “Life” header before “By the Sea (short story)”