Bookvica

[UKRAINIAN SYMBOLISM THROUGH WOMAN'S PROSE] Vybrani Tvory. Redaktsiia ta Vstupna Stattia M. Ivchenka [i.e. Selected works. Compilation and introductory article by M. Ivchenko]

Dniprova Chaika

Item #2307

Kiiv: Vydavnytstvo "Chas", 1929. 207, [3] p. 18,5 x 12,5 cm. . One of 3150 copies. Original publisher’s illustrated cover. In Ukrainian. Overall in very good condition. Minor restoration. Foxing. Untrimmed. Original publisher’s wrapper with an anonymous art nouveau design in black and blue and title done in chunky font, accenting the folk motifs. Pentil mark on the half-title.

Dniprova Chaika [The Dnieper Seagull] is a pseudonym of Liudmyla O. Vasylevska-Berezina (1861 — 1927), one of the few Ukrainian woman writers who started to publish during the XIXth century, one of the main Ukrainian symbolist poets of the time.

At the start of her career, Vasylevska-Berezina was supported by Ivan Franko. Chaika’s first known poetic publication is dated 1885. Same year she married Feofan Vasylevskyi, a fierce nationalist whose activities led to constant restraints introduced to their family by the imperial police. Vasylevska-Berezina had to stay busy with a large family and teaching jobs, so she concentrated on short forms; mostly novels and poems. They, however, also attracted specific interest of the censors, which resulted in brief arrests and manuscript confiscations. A close friend of eminent composer Mykola Lysenko (1842—1921), Vasylevska-Berezina also wrote librettos for his operas.

Despite her pioneering role and virtuoso stylistic combinations, Chaika’s works remain understudied today. There is still no complete collected works, but the decade of 2010’s witnessed some promising academia research. As of now, 4 lifetime editions of any of her works are known and additionally collected works in 2 vols printed in Kiev, in 1919 and 1920.
This 1929 selection is what looks like Chaika’s first posthumous book. It includes 18 short stories and an extensive introductory note on pp. 5-37 by Mykhailo Ivchenko (1890 -— 1939), a poet, critic and translator. Ivchenko wrote what seems to be the first in-depth study of Chaika’s style development and biographical note. He even went as far as interviewing friends and correspondents of Vasylevska-Berezina to complete the article. Despite including only prose, Ivchenko did a really great job, representing the variety of Chaika’s works. Partially it was because Chaika undoubtedly evolved within this genre greatly with time, partly because she viewed her short stories as her most impactful literature, as that unique ne mozhu movchaty [can’t keep the silence] voice.
The themes and tone of voice observable in present works resonate with the sorrowful aestheticism of her pen name. “Seagull” here can be understood as a feminine protector and nurturer of the Dnieper children, i.e. all Ukrainians as the children of their homeland. Vasylevska-Berezina formed her style with a rare combination of narrative, symbolism, and folklore motifs.

Her early Khrestonos (p. 103), a Dostoevski-like work on the moral rebirth of a drinking widowed peasant who fell and crippled himself physically while installing a cross on the church — but found a way to connect with the surrounding people. In Obraz velykoho (p. 84) we see an intense Turgenev-like poem in rhythmic prose, one providing a moving and emotional depiction of a stormy sea with short paragraphs rising on the paper one after another, akin to the countless waves on the sea. Later works are fairy tales like Dyvnyi tkach (p. 98) or some romanticist novels also present in this selection, demonstrating the momentum when the Ukrainian symbolism was brought to a whole new level: in complexity of structure, story, allegories. P. 66 presents a short story Divchyna-Chaika with semi-autobiographical motives.

Virtually unknown to the West, Dniprova Chaika is a recognized writer in Ukraine: her profile even appeared on 2010’s collectible silver coins. As with any bird drifting far away in the skies, the Dnieper Seagull’ voice might be distant and soft. But the emotion of her songs falls directly into the heart.

Not in KVK. Not in WorldCat.

Sold