Chapter II: Introduction

Ukrainian literature offers perhaps the best medium for studying the aspirations of the Ukrainian people and their mode of existence. In many ways it presents a sad picture for Ukraine has suffered much during the last thousand years and the efforts of its people to develop an independent state which could give them freedom and happiness have been thwarted again and again. We have the almost unique example of a nation of forty million people that has not been able in the last centuries to become the master and the director of its fate, that has been doomed to undergo every form of humiliation and yet has held firm its resolve to try again at the first opportunity that offered any hope of success.

It is the task of history to explain this anomalous situation and historians, whether friendly or hostile, have not been slow to take advantage of their privilege. The narrators of the story of Ukraine have approached the subject from every conceivable angle. Some have denied stoutly that there ever was a Ukraine. Others have declared that the nation met its fate because of its own errors and defects. Still others have challenged these unfavorable views and have laid the blame on better prepared and grasping neighbors. There are many more of these explanations but we have little to do with them.

Literature explains the results of history. It shows us the effects that history has had upon the masses and upon the individual. It gives us in artistic form a picture of the reactions of the people to the conditions under which they are compelled to live and even more than history, it mirrors their ideals and their dreams for the future. Yet it does even more than this.

The important thing in modern literature is the light which it throws upon the personalities of the authors themselves, both as individuals and as representatives of their people. No one in modern literature can produce a memorable work without making clear the innermost workings of his own soul and thoughts and feelings. When we look from this point of view at such men as Shevchenko and Franko, we realize that we are dealing with real spiritual and intellectual leaders with a real faith in democracy and that these men have a message not only for their people and age but for the entire world.

We are often inclined to believe that a literature which is little known can have little of value in it. The permanent worth and the greatness of an author are not immediately visible in the sale of his works and in the number of translations that are made of them. Accident plays a large rôle and often an unlucky but great author must wait years for recognition while another who is fortunate but less great will receive almost immediate and quick-passing praise as a genius. We need only think of the large number of last year’s best-sellers that have gone into a speedy oblivion and of the world’s masterpieces which continue a slow but steady sale for decades as the real virtues slowly but surely attract a multitude of devoted readers.

Human nature is remarkably constant from age to age and country to country but there develops through the centuries a specific character of each nation and culture. Manners and customs may change. Costumes may be discarded and varied. Economic conditions may be outgrown or swept away by revolution. Something remains and that something is the very kernel of the national character which perseveres and expresses itself in literature.

This kernel may be obscured by superficial details. Its qualities and virtues may be hidden by external trappings. It may seem to take strange and unusual forms. It may seem to be inconsistent with much that tradition and religion and education have built around it but it still remains and the sympathetic reader who can look below the surface of the outward form can realize its meaning and its significance for humanity.

This is especially true with Ukrainian literature. Its modern period started with the _Eneida_ of Kotlyarevsky in 1798 and it has under severe difficulties carried on from then until the present. Yet it has never wavered in its two outstanding qualities, a keen sense of realism and above all a confidence and belief in democracy in every form and this is its chief characteristic. There is hardly a literature which is more devoted to the cause of the common man and presents him more sympathetically in his struggles, his difficulties and his achievements and if there may be said to be anywhere a literature of the common man, it is the Ukrainian literature.