Hotel Bukovyna

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones 8-1-2014 Hotel Bukovyna Rebecca Ann Bosshart University of Nevada, Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations Part of the American Literature Commons, Fiction Commons, Folklore Commons, and the Slavic Languages and Societies Commons Repository Citation Bosshart, Rebecca Ann, "Hotel Bukovyna" (2014). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 2169. http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/6456399 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HOTEL BUKOVYNA ! By ! Rebecca Bosshart ! Bachelor of Arts in Journalism University of Nevada, Reno May 2002 ! A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the ! Master of Fine Arts - Creative Writing ! English Department College of Liberal Arts The Graduate College ! ! University of Nevada, Las Vegas August 2014 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ——————————————————- Copyright by Rebecca Bosshart, 2014 All Rights Reserved —————————————————— ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! THE GRADUATE COLLEGE ! ! We recommend the thesis prepared under our supervision by ! Rebecca Bosshart entitled ! Hotel Bukovyna ! is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of ! Master of Fine Arts - Creative Writing Department of English ! Douglas Unger, M.F.A., Committee Chair Richard Wiley, M.F.A., Committee Member Maile Chapman, Ph.D., Committee Member Paul Werth, Ph.D., Graduate College Representative Kathryn Hausbeck Korgan, Ph.D., Interim Dean of the Graduate College ! August 2014 !ii ABSTRACT Hotel Bukovyna By Becky Bosshart ! Professor Douglas Unger Professor of English University of Nevada, Las Vegas This collection of short stories and first chapter of a novella take place in the historical area of Bukovyna, the beech tree land, partly located in Chernivetska region, western Ukraine. On the edge of it, or under it, or traveling to and from it, in contemporary time. I’ve been occupied with “the outsider,” represented here, and where the seven stories reside, by the giant grande dame tourist hotel on Main Street, across from Shevchenko Park, in Chernivtsi, the region’s city center. The occupants: the outsider looking in and around. Outsiders looking at other outsiders. An outsider being welcomed in. Most of these stories are realistic, concerned with the development of democratic Ukraine and the preservation of its people and culture. I’ve pulled poetry, song, fabulist elements, and characters from the national literature and folklore, all in a quest to convey this complicated region. ! ! ! ! !iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This collection was written while I was a Peace Corps Ukraine volunteer from 2012 to 2014, and directly after our evacuation in late February 2014, with the support of the UNLV Master’s International Program, the Peace Corps Ukraine TEFL Project, Chernivtsi National University, all its professors, staff and students, and my advisers Douglas Unger, Richard Wiley, Dr. Maile Chapman, and Dr. Paul Werth. No one stands alone in The Process. This thesis is no exception. I was inspired by the works of several great writers, including (but not limited to): Mark Twain, particularly The Innocents Abroad and his short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”; L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; Nikolai Gogol’s “St. John’s Eve,” from The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol, translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky; Bukovynian native Maria Matios's Sweet Darusya: A Tale of Two Villages, translated from the Ukrainian by Michael M. Naydan with Olha Tytarenko; and Oksana Zabuzhko’s Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex, translated from the Ukrainian by Halyna Hryn. This thesis was reworked and edited while I was living off the kindness of family, Robert and Dee Bosshart, and friends, including: Amy Kingsley and Justin Yurkanin and their sons Ike and Will; Jamison Crabtree; Mary Martha and Charles Morton and their children Owen and Clair; Ashley Siebels and Matt Hayes; Desiree Belcher; Aurora Brackett; Tia Taymar and Mark Danner and their son Zenn; Cindi Reed; Molly O’Donnell and David Hardy; Gina Quaranto and her son Gabe; Brittany Bronson; and Doug Unger and Carola Raab. With much love and gratitude. !iv You’ll find words here from Chernivetska natives, including iconic songwriter/ composer Volodymyr Ivasyuk and distinguished poet Mykhaylo Tkach. Translation assistance was provided by Anastasiia Karalash, of Kelmentsi, Elena Novosadska, of Chernivtsi, and Tamela Sotula. Help with cultural understanding came from Iryna Krupska, Volodya Kondratyuk, Lena Nastenko, and all the Peace Corps training staff in Kyiv, and Michael Lukashchuk and Kateryna Kurysh, both of Chernivtsi. Many friends contributed anecdotes and ideas to this manuscript, or just simply were inspiring: Mary- Kathryn Hart, Nathalie Hanlet, Dan Thompson, Erin Martin, Stephanie Harp, Allie Holtzer, Suzanne Gaboury Norman, Paula Adams, Mary Miller, Sandra Joy Russell, Anna Goss, Kristen Nesbitt, Kathryne Delcarpio, Zoe Astrid Wyatt, and Erica Anzalone. I’m indebted to the help of wonderful friends who became editors while remaining friends: Joseph Langdon, Genevie Durano, Cindi Reed, Mary Catharine Martin, Regina Ernst, and Ashley Siebels. Most are UNLV MFA graduates, all Las Vegas writers/residents at some point in time. And don’t we all want to be? at some point in time. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Abstract…..…………………………………………………………………………iii 2. Acknowledgements………..………………………………………………………..iv 3. New Tales From the Old Country and the Ancient City..……………………………1 4. Frontier State, Under………………………………………………………………..32 5. Kaput Mist…..………………………………………………………………………48 6. Katyas……………………………..…………………………………………….…..73 7. Ihor of the Carpathians…………..………………………………………………….84 8. A Bukovynian Tale 1. Saint John’s Eve……………………………………………97 9. Awe La Di Da Di, For Marichka…..………………………………………………134 10. Author’s curriculum vitae…….…….……………………………………………..143 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !vi NEW TALES FROM THE OLD COUNTRY AND THE ANCIENT CITY Kolobok1 In the country, in a region far from the capital live a granny and grandpa. We can’t exactly call them poor because they live in a red brick mansion with a pink basilica dome, a silver plated spire, turrets, and their own chapel. But we couldn’t call them rich, either. They live off money sent to them from their daughter, who works in Italy while they take care of her children. She’s been sending euro back home to care for the family, and to construct the big shell of a manor into a home, bit by bit, for all the family. But recently, costs are growing more and more and the money covering less and less. In the meantime, her children are growing fast and eating a lot. So babucya and diduyc go hungry. That morning dida comes into the kitchen, one of only three rooms of the big house they use, with buckets from the well. He pours the water into the chrome sink for his wife to clean the dishes. In the sink sit the kasha bowls from the boy and girl, now away at school. His hairy brow wrinkles even more. “Baba, can you at least make us one bread roll?” “With what should I bake it?” baba asks with consternation. The smooth skin and plump red cheeks of her pretty maiden days have long since turned wrinkled like a 1 Translated and adapted from the Ukrainian fairy tale. The word kolobok has no translation except to say that it means the little animated bread roll from this tale, which strikes cords of similarity to our little gingerbread man. I wanted to practice translating fairy tales featuring animal protagonists for several reasons. First, to get as far away from reality as possible. Nothing’s more happily detached than the wonderful world of fabulist creatures. I also wanted to translate stories I thought would be more manageable since my language skills were elementary. But even with these motivations in mind, nothing is ever as easy as you think it will be. !1 balled-up newspaper. Her dark, glossy hair has thinned to wisps she hides beneath a floral headscarf. Her petite hands are now as wrinkled and spotted as dida’s jowls, but her sweet melodic voice hasn’t changed one bit. Her every phrase sounds like a song, a deep and melancholic tone that stops animals in their tracks, ears perked to commiserate with baba’s plight, as if the pigs and chickens could sit at the table sharing their troubles over dill-flavored vodka. But of course, they’d already sat on the table, which dida remembers with a wisp of longing for long-ago eaten meals. Baba’s songs bring back bittersweet memories of youth and gaiety to the old grandfather — especially when he’s hungry. “Oho, baba, did you scrape out the flour basket and sweep the bottom of the grain bin? Maybe you will get just enough to make one bun.” He expels a great deal of energy in saying this. He plops down at the table and leans over his rickety knees. His joints make a sound that reminds him of cracking chicken bones. Just so baba can say that she’s tried everything (and grannies do like to remind others how much they endure), she does exactly this. The old woman scrapes out the flour basket, her nails catching every speck. Then she gets down on her knees — she thinks of the sound of fat crackling in an oiled pan — and sweeps the bottom of the grain bin with a short bristled brush.

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