Marko Vovchok

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mariya Vilinska
Марія Олександрівна Вілінська
МаркоВовчок2.jpg
Born22 December 1833
Yekaterininskoye selo, Yeletsk uyezd, Oryol Governorate, Russian Empire
Died10 August 1907(1907-08-10) (aged 73)
Nalchik, , Russian Empire
Pen nameMarko Vovchok
Марко Вовчок
OccupationWriter, translator

Marko Vovchok (Ukrainian: Марко́ Вовчо́к, real name Mariya Vilinskаya, Russian: Мария Александровна Вилинская; 22 December 1833 – 10 August 1907) was a famous Ukrainian writer. Her pen name, Marko Vovchok, was invented by Panteleimon Kulish.[1] Her works had an anti-serfdom orientation and described the historical past of Ukraine. In the 1860s, Vovchok gained considerable literary fame in Ukraine after the publication in 1857 of a Ukrainian-language collection, "Folk Tales" . She enriched Ukrainian literature with a number of new genres, in particular, the social story ("Institute"). Marusya's story, translated and adapted into French, became popular in Western Europe at the end of the 19th century. After a scandal over the plagiarism of her translations into Russian in the 1870s, she almost ended her literary career.

Vilinska was the wife of Ukrainian ethnographer Opanas Markovych and Russian officer Mykhailo Lobach-Zhuchenko, the mother of Russian publicist Bohdan Markovych, the cousin of Russian literary critic Dmytro Pisarev, the older sister of Russian writer Dmytro Vilinsky, and the aunt of a Ukrainian diplomat.

Until now, there are different opinions about the authorship of Ukrainian works by Marko Vovchko. Discussions about her magnum opus "Folk Tales" have been going on since the middle of the 19th century: many literary critics (including the editor of the collection Panteleimon Kulish) believe that this collection was co-authored with her first husband, the ethnographer .

Biography[]

Mariya Vilinska was born in 1833 in the Oryol Governorate of the Russian Empire into the family of an army officer and a noblewoman. After she lost her father at the age of 7, she was raised at her aunt's estate and then sent off to study first to Kharkov (now Kharkiv, Ukraine) and then to Oryol. In 1851 she moved to Ukraine, having married Aphanasyy Markovych, a folklorist and ethnographer who was a member of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius.[2] From 1851 till 1858 she lived in Chernihiv, Kiev and Nemyriv, assisting her husband with his ethnographic work and learning the Ukrainian culture and language. In 1857 Marko Vovchok wrote Narodni opovidannya (Folk Stories). It met with immediate acclaim in Ukrainian literary circles, in particular from Taras Shevchenko and Panteleimon Kulish, and in Russia after it had been translated into Russian and edited by Ivan Turgenev as Ukrainskie narodnye rasskazy (Ukrainian Folk Tales, 1859).[3] After a short stay in Saint Petersburg in 1859, Marko Vovchok moved to Central Europe, where she resided in Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland. From 1867 to 1878, she again lived in Saint Petersburg, where due to the prohibition against the Ukrainian language she wrote and translated for Russian magazines. Vovchok wrote in Russian Zhivaya dusha (The living soul, 1868), Zapiski prichyotnika (Notes of a junior deacon, 1870), V glushi (In the backwoods, 1875) and several other novels. From 1878, she lived in the Northern Caucasus, and in 1885–1893 in Kiev Governorate, where she proceeded with her work on Ukrainian folklore and a dictionary. At the beginning of the 1900s Mariya Vilinska restored her contact with Ukrainian publishers.

After gaining considerable publicity for Vovchok's plagiarism, when she attributed other people's Russian translations to herself, and the collapse of the Translations of the Best Foreign Writers magazine, Vovchok left St. Petersburg in 1872 and settled on the estate of her acquaintances in the Tver province. Living in the "province", she continued to write in Russian. In particular, at this time her novels and short stories "Warm Nest" (Ukr. Teple Gnezdechko, 1873), "In the Wilderness" (Ukr. In the game, 1875), "Rest in the village" (Ukr. Rest in the village, 1876—1899), etc.

1878 - remarries , much younger than her, and for the next 30 years lives in her husband's places of service in various parts of the Russian Empire (Stavropol, Boguslav, Nalchik). In particular, in 1887-1893 - in the village. (Kyiv province). Later, the Lobach-Zhuchenko family settled in the Russian city of Nalchik, Terek region, and lived there until the death of Maria Lobach-Zhuchenko.

She died on 10 August 1907 in Nalchik, Russian Empire.

English translations[]

Ukrainian post stamp dedicated to Marko Vovchok.
  • P.J. Stahl [from the legend by Marko Vovchok]. Maroussia, A Russian Legend. Translated from the French by Belle Tevis Speed // National repository Vol. 8, Cincinnati: Hitchcock and Walden. 1880. pp.: 39-50, 146-156, 230-240, 329-338 (abridged)
    • (reprinted) P.J. Stahl [from the legend by Marko Vovchok]. Maroussia, A Russian Legend. Translated from the French by Belle Tevis Speed // Stories of Patriotism and Devotion. For Young People. Translated from the French by Belle Tevis Speed. Cincinnati: Walden & Showe; Toronto: Wm. Briggs. 1883. 325 pp. (abridged)
  • P.J. Stahl [from the legend by Marko Vovchok]. Maroussia. Translated from the French by Sarah Herrick Kidder. [n.p]: [n.p]. 1887. 130 p. (abridged)
  • P.J. Stahl [from the legend by Marko Vovchok]. Maroussia: A Maid of Ukraine. Translated from the French by Cornelia W. Cyr. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. 1890. 268 p. (unabridged)

References[]

  1. ^ Марко Вовчок: фатальна жінка української літератури (in Ukrainian)
  2. ^ Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak. Feminists Despite Themselves: Women in Ukrainian Community Life, 1884–1939 (Edmonton: Canadian institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1988), p. 9.
  3. ^ "Маркович Марья Александровна (Марко-Вовчок)". Russian Biographical Dictionary (in Russian). 1896–1918. Retrieved 13 December 2009.

Sources[]

External links[]


Stub icon

This article about a Ukrainian writer or poet is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .

  • v
  • t
Retrieved from ""