A Test in Ukrainian Literature
I have recently come across a text, in which a well-known author (formerly focused on russia, naturally) is trying to grasp what Ukrainian literature is about. Laudable as it is to see foreign intellectuals join the fascinating world of the endless Ukrainian cultural sratch (discussions), I couldn’t help but notice the raging gaps in basic knowledge that the newly born expert on Ukraine displayed.
Ukrainian literature hasn’t historically enjoyed the privileged status that imperial literatures have, and not many authors have been translated at all. However, as many of such experts possess good command of russian, they would probably have no problem getting a grasp of Ukrainian and reading the texts in original (I tried it with the russian speakers at our university reading group, and they did indeed learn to read Ukrainian prose and poetry very fast).
Unfortunately, instead of taking a small effort, the foreign experts prefer to enrich our literature with the authors few Ukrainians associate themselves with. In his essay to Kyiv Post (and how confident one has to be to write about Ukraine for Ukrainian audience), Jonathan Littell starts with looking at his bookshelf of “russian writers”, and decides, graciously, to question if he should find “Ukrainians” in that undoubtedly exhaustive compilation. The idea that there could be Ukrainian writers who Littell doesn’t have on his russian shelf seems like too much of an effort (in the end, if you’ve read one book, you’ve sort of read them all).
The expert then goes on to allocate writers with “Ukrainian blood” as belonging to Ukriane and laments at the poor understanding of life by us, Ukrainian aborigines emotionally discarding the offer. A sharp response by Lia Dostlieva and Andriy Dosliev best explains the problematics of such cultural charity. Here I will only remark that for a Ukrainian who studied at a middle school in Kharkiv, it is funny that someone thinks Ukrainian literature starts with Shevchenko. Even funnier to read Littell’s essay in a coffee shop in central Kharkiv situated on Hrihorii Kvitky-Osnovianenka street, leafing through a new edition of Eneida by Ivan Kotlyarevsky, both authors preceding Shevchenko by decades. I did not, surely, expect a foreigner to go as far as recalling Kharkiv school of romantics, with Amvrosyi Metlynsky and his gothic tales, predating Gogol. But Skovoroda, it seemed, should have been in the mix for at least the fact that Littell was in Kharkiv in 2022 and had to know about the destruction of the philosopher’s museum by a russian cruise missile.
A hilarious combination of lecturing tone and obvious gaps in knowledge is also typical of many russian intellectuals trying to squeeze into a new lucrative field of Ukrainian-themed grants. I will deliberately avoid names here, as the aim of this text is rather to help you, the reader, decide if your knowledge of Ukrainian literature is enough to write an article in Kyiv Post, and if there is anything that can be improved. Here’s a short test I’ve conjured in 15 minutes of a lazy coffee drinking with a Napoleon cake in Kharkiv. Enjoy.
Questions.
- Who is considered the “father” or “grandfather” of Ukrainian literature:
a) Taras Shevchenko
b) Lesya Ukrainka (I know it’s a stretch, but go girls)
c) Ivan Kotlyarevsky
d) Mykola (aka Nikolai) Gogol
2. Which writers have “Marusia” in the titles of their iconic texts:
a) Mykola (aka Nikolai) Gogol
b) Hrihorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko
c) Lesya Ukrainka (because awesome)
d) Lina Kostenko
3. Which poet wrote about the blasted linden tree rustling so it stuck into every Ukrainian’s brain forever:
a) Ivan Franko
b) Pavlo Tychyna
c) Volodymyr Sosiura
d) Marko Vovchok
4. Whose family in Ukrainian literature is more notorious than Kardashians?
a) Kaidash family
b) Lesya Ukrainka’s family
c) Khrystya Alchevska’s family
d) Franko’s family
5. Who wrote the iconic verse, tattooed thousands of times in Ukrainian tattoo salons, “I will not die from death, I will die from life”?
a) Mykhail Semenko
b) Vasyl Symonenko
c) Vasyl Stus
d) Ivan Drach
Answers.
- c) Ivan Kotlyarevsky. (“Kotlyarevsky’s status in Ukrainian literature is equal to the role of the great Dante in Italian culture,” Rostyslav Semkiv notes in his article about the Eneida, a re-imagined Aeneid, featuring Ukrainian cossacks).
- b) and c). While Hrihorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko wrote a seminal romantic story Marusia, Lina Kostenko created an epic poem Marusia Churai, based on a medieval legend of a singer-songwriter from Poltava who notoriously poisoned her lover and was aquitted by the cossack leadership for she wrote great anthem songs that helped morale of the warriors.
- b) Pavlo Tychyna famously wrote,
“Do you know how linden rustles
In moonlight spring nights?
The lover sleeps, the lover sleeps,
Go wake her, kiss her eyes
The lover sleeps… (and so on)”.
Tychyna is known for two things, being an ingenius poet in the 1920s, and becoming a model soviet zombie, who wrote about tractors and great soviet state post 1930s. My mom used to recall a children’s verse “It’s better to eat a brick than learn Pavlo Tychyna” (“краще з’їсти кирпичину, ніж учить Павла Тичину”).
4. a) The most notorious family in Ukrainian fiction is Kaidash — the ever-bickering, eye-pricking communion of relatives, created by the genius of Ivan Nechui-Levytskyi. You can watch a modern TV series inspired by the text, To Catch Kaidash, on Netflix in some countries. However, all of the other families mentioned are the actual families of Ukrainian intellectuals who revolutionized poetic language in the late 19th-early 20th century.
5. a) Mikhail Semenko was an enfant terrible of Ukrainian poetry, the most heart-breaking, tragic and beautiful author. He was a futurist, inspired by Marinetti, and ended up dying from an nkvd police officers’ bullet.
If you were able to answer all the questions, congratulations, you are already more proficient in Ukrainian literature than Jonathan Littell and almost as proficient as a Ukrainian 12-year-old.
As a gift for you, a recent music album, dedicated to the 1920s Ukrainian writers, very popular among Kyiv cultural scene these days and named after the seminal novella by Mykola Khvylovyi, I, Romantics.
Keep reading Ukrainian literature. Don’t be afraid of Ukrainian language. Fight for freedom in every field.
Hugs,
Viktoriia
