Seven Lives George S. N. Luckyj THE ANNALS OF THE UKRAINIAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES IN THE U.S., INC. VOLUME XX, 1998-1999 NUMBERS 47-48 SEVEN LIVES Vignettes of Ukrainian Writers in the Nineteenth Century by George S.N. Luckyj Published by THE UKRAINIAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES IN THE U.S., Inc. The Annals o f the Ukrainian Academy o f Arts and Sciences in the U.S. are published by the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., Inc. Publications Committee: Lubomyr R. Wynar (chairman), Oleksa Bilaniuk, Oleksander Dombrowsky, Eugene Fedorenko, Assya Humesky, George Luckyj, William Omelchenko Editorial Board: Oleksa Bilaniuk, Swarthmore College, President of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S.; Assya Humesky, University of Michigan; Albert A. Kipa, Muhlenberg College; Lubomyr R. Wynar, Kent State University Volume editor: Albert A. Kipa, Muhlenberg College All correspondence, orders, and remittances should be addressed to: The Annals of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S. 206 West 100th Street, New York, New York 10025 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 59-33060 ISBN 0503-1001 All rights reserved © 1999 by the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., Inc. Printed by Computoprint Corp., 35 Harding Avenue, Clifton, N.J. 07011 Tel. (973) 772-2166 Fax: (973) 772-1963 e-mail: [email protected] For Moira VOLUME XX, 1998-1999 NUMBERS 47-48 CONTENTS A prefatory note..................................................................................9 Introduction ......................................................................................11 Hryhoriy Kvitka-Osnovianenko ...................................................... 39 Panteleimon Kulish ..........................................................................51 Marko Vovchok................................................................................95 Osyp Yuriy Fedkovych.................................................................. 105 Ivan Nechuy-Levytsky....................................................................121 Ivan Franko.....................................................................................135 Lesia Ukrainka................................................................................161 Bibliographical Essay.................................................................... 189 Roman Senkus: George S. N. Luckyj, Octogenarian..................... 199 Index............................................................................................. 204 With the publication of this volume of The Annals, The Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the United States honors one of the founders of the series, its distinguished member and prominent Slavicist, Professor George S. N. Luckyj, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. The biographical essays presented here are intended for a broad spectrum of readers while scholars may find ad­ ditional information in the Bibliographical Essay. A Prefatory Note The present volume was prompted by a desire to acquaint North American readers with little-known but prominent writers of nineteenth-century Ukraine. These mini-biographies, set against the background of their time, may perhaps serve as an introduction to modern Ukrainian intellectual history. In the first decade of its post­ colonial history, Ukraine is reassessing its cultural heritage and this is becoming of interest both to its neighbors and to those who knew very little about that heritage. The approach taken here is that of "cultural history," which today, in the words of Gertrude Himmelfarb, "instead of concentrating on the progression of events...has been 'so- cial-scientizeď." Regrettably, perhaps, it was not possible to follow this new methodology because of the distance from Ukrainian sources and archives. What has emerged is the somewhat old-fashioned "col­ lective biography of 'elites' - sometimes referred to as "prosopogra- phy." I discuss the historical and social background of nineteenth- century Ukraine in some detail in the introductory chapter. Originally, a short biography of Ukraine's national poet, Ta­ ras Shevchenko, was also included in this volume. His life in many ways epitomizes Ukraine's struggle to establish a modem national identity in the nineteenth century. However, since a similar work of mine recently appeared in English under the title Shevchenko's Un­ forgotten Journey (Toronto, 1996), and a scholarly biography by Pavlo Zaytsev is available in English, I decided to omit the bio­ graphical sketch of Shevchenko here and to add instead a vignette of Marko Vovchok. Some material on Shevchenko's life may be found in the Bibliographical Essay, which provides more general sources on the leading figures of the nineteenth century. I would like to express my gratitude to my colleagues George Shevelov, Lubomyr Wynar and Assya Humesky for their assistance and to Susan Kent- Davidson for her expert editing. Introduction Whoever writes our story will be telling the tale of the hunt from the hare's point of view. Askold Melnyczuk “WhatIs Told" 1 The genre of literary biography is still very popular with readers. It is abhorred by most modem critics. The Canadian writer Robert Fulford says that "we are living in the great age of biography, and in a sense that's surprising. It runs against the main currents of academic thought, which have for decades been moving away from the celebration of great individuals." Gone are the days when biogra­ phies served up Freudian or Jungian interpretations of writers' lives. Today they do not satisfy post-modernist pundits. Therefore, by and large, they are sidestepped and relegated to the gatherers of detail and gossip. Literary studies, it is claimed, can either do without them or should concentrate on texts alone. Yet in Ukrainian literary history, biography may come to claim an important place even at this late date. For decades, under the Soviet regime, literary biography played the role of handmaiden to ideology. The lives of writers were narrated briefly and only as illus­ trations of competing historical forces. Often they resembled the lives of saints. Their significance in relation to literary works was treated in very simplistic form, and they were regarded as reflections of class struggle. Today all this is changing. First of all, the archives have been opened, and great curiosity animates researchers of the biographical material contained in them, for decades shielded from the public. Who were these writers, often neglected or maligned in the past? What were their true life stories, and why were so many details of 12 THE ANNALS OF THE UKRAINIAN ACADEMY their biographies hidden? These are legitimate questions, and in the coming years, when publishing difficulties are finally overcome, many new biographies of Ukrainian writers may appear. For these lives will reveal a part of the national memory that has been almost eradicated by the communist regime. As Iris Murdoch wrote: "One of the first things which liberated people want to know is the truth about their past." If national identity is to acquire a new, deeper meaning, then this will be done by reading literary biographies. For writers, not politicians or scholars, have always been at the forefront of national consciousness in Ukraine. The present volume represents an attempt to approach anew the literary biographies of nineteenth-century Ukraine. This must be done within the context of a modem, although well-known plan. The mid-centuiy's respected biographer Leon Edel believed that "the writing of a literary life would be nothing but a kind of indecent curi­ osity, and an invasion of privacy, were it not that it seeks always to illuminate the mysterious and magical process of creation." Today, literary biography does not necessarily illuminate a writer's work. The two are believed to be independent of each other. Any attempt to re­ late biography and the artist's work is dismissed as "biographical fal­ lacy." This indeed may be so, but one will never succeed in a total separation of life and work. However, I have decided here only to mention but not to discuss literary works, and only to indicate some linkage in the life-stories. My guide in this volume came from another dictum of Leon Edel. "No lives are led," he wrote, "outside history or society. No bi­ ography is complete unless it reveals the individual within history, within an ethos and a social complex." This harks back to Goethe's famous maxim that "the principal task of biography is to present a man in the conditions of his time." What may sound like an old cliché could still be a signpost for today's reader and is the central position of the present study. What appears as "discursive encoding," "life- texts," or "generic forms" - to mention only some preoccupations of modern biographers - are ignored. History is not treated as mere background but as part of the writers' individuality. Lionel Trilling's statement that "we have the sense of the past and must live with it, and by it. And we must read our literature by it."(1948) - is our sign- INTRODUCTION 13 post. An attempt is made here to impart a sense of the unfolding of the modem Ukrainian historical identity. In a post-colonial world this may be of interest to others. Seven biographical vignettes of nineteenth-century Ukrainian writers are presented here for the English-speaking reader unfamiliar with Ukraine's past as a possible illumination of Ukrainian intellectual history, rather than of literature. The nineteenth