Depicting Ukrainian National Identity in the Prose by Marko Vovchok

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Depicting Ukrainian National Identity in the Prose by Marko Vovchok

Journal Title: Scientific journal «International Journal of Philology» - Year 2015, Vol 1, Issue 225

Abstract

The article is devoted to the works of one of the most prominent Ukrainian writers of the second half of the XIX century, Marko Vovchok (literary pseudonym of Mariya Markovych, born Mariya Vilinskaya). Attention is paid to the problem of Ukrainian national identity of her prose works, which is an urgent problem in contemporary Ukraine. Marko Vovchok was born in Russia, but due to her grandfather and her father, who collected Ukrainian folk songs, and later her husband, a famous Ukrainian ethnographer and fighter for literacy and freedom for the Ukrainian people, Opanas Markovych, she studied the Ukrainian language and culture profoundly and started writing in Ukrainian following the patterns of Ukrainian oral tradition. Her language and style were so good, that doubts appeared among her contemporaries whether as a person of non-Ukrainian origin, she could have really been the author of her works. As pointed out by Professor of Monash University, Australia, Marko Pavlyshyn, Marko Vovchok played a very important part in the development of the Ukrainian literature and culture in general. She started writing the Ukrainian stylistically transparent prose, which was the necessary missing element in the cultural development of the nation of that time. «Letters from Paris» by Marko Vovchok were the first travel notes, published in Ukrainian. «Peasant Tales» were praized by critics and publishers as a masterpiece, based on pure folk culture. Another scientist, Solomiya Pavlychko, praized Marko Vovchok’s style for being objective, light, sincere, colloquial, and also named the demonstration of psychological peculiarities of different people, attention to the inner world of a person among the best features of her literary works. The style of «Peasant Tales» and other texts by Marko Vovchok demonstrates that the author had studied ethnograthy in detail. The texts are greatly influenced by the Ukrainian national folk tales and songs; the profound knowledge of customs and traditions, way of life and speaking is obvious, so these stories are precious as the source of information about the Ukrainian national identity for new generations. Some of the stories have plots, borrowed from folk songs, and almost all the stories contain parts of songs, proverbs and sayings, words of endearment, similes and metaphors, characteristic of the language of Ukrainian peasants of the time. Most of them show the close relation of people with nature (for example, words of enderment are often the names of birds or fish). The speech of characters sometimes contains rhyme, which shows the poetic nature of the Ukrainian people. Other traces of national character, described by Marko Vovchok, are industriousness, love of freedom, respect for parents and old people in general, passion in love, strong religious beliefs. Marko Vovchok’s editor Panteleymon Kulish criticized her story «Instytutka» (which means «young female institute student or graduate» in spoken language of peasant illiterate people) for her characters being too obviously described real people. When Marko Vovchok went abroad she missed communication with Ukrainian people to inspire her writing. It could be the reason of her choise of a historical topic. In Paris she wrote her historical novel «Marusya», which was described as the translation from Ukrainian into Russian, but the Ukrainian original has never been found. The novel was translated into French by the author herself, but the editor, Pierre Jules Hetzel, did not like the translation while he found the plot very resourceful. So, he adapted it for young French readers and published it with the title «Maroussia, d’après la légende de Marko Wovzog» («Marusya, based on the legend by Marko Vovchok») signed P.-J. Stahl (which was his pseudonym). The book gained immense popularity, was awarded by the French Academy in 1979 and was recommended by the Ministry of National. Education as the book to raise French patriotism. The narrative is highly patriotic; it dates back to the seventeenth century and shows brave and selfless people, Cossacks and peasants, who are ready to sacrifice their lives for Ukraine. The protagonist is a girl, called Marusya, but the idea is that she was one of many courageous Ukrainian girls who helped the nation survive. So, Marko Vovchok, a woman, who came to Ukraine from Russia, but loved the Ukrainian people and became a Ukrainian national writer, told the world about Ukraine. Her books are the precious source of knowledge of life of Ukrainian peasants, and so they contribute to the national identity preserving.

Authors and Affiliations

O Rudko

Keywords

folk songs historical novel «Maroussia» Marko Vovchok national identity national sources for writing «Narodni Opovidannya» («Peasant Tales») Ukrainian prose of the second half of the XIX century

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