Novel
Земля
Not translated into English
Olha Kobylianska · 1902
Opening lines
Дві години від ріки Серету на Буковині лежить село Д.
Two hours from the river Siret in Bukovina lies the village of D.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from ukrlib.com.ua
Synopsis
In the village of Dymka, in Bukovina, Ivonika Fedorchuk and his wife Maria have toiled all their lives to buy land. The elder son, Mykhailo, hard-working and attached to the fields, is to inherit it, and he loves Anna, a poor servant. The younger, Sava, lazy and a hunter, falls in love with his cousin Rakhira, daughter of an uncle who once gave false testimony against Ivonika. When Mykhailo is called up for military service, Sava's jealousy over the land promised to his brother grows.
Context
The author worked on it from 1895 to 1901, starting from a news item that occurred in Dymka in the autumn of 1894. The novel appeared in 1902 in the Literatourno-naoukovy vistnyk, then in volume in Lviv the same year; it was reissued in her lifetime in Kolomyia in 1913, and in Leipzig and Kiev in 1919. It follows three lines, that of the parents and the two love affairs of the sons, and gives the land itself the role of a character. A French translation, La Terre, appeared in Kiev in 1973.
Who it is for
A novel of about three hundred and fifty pages in the usual editions, written in the language of the peasants of Bukovina.
Prizes and reception
One of the two best-known novels of its author, together with В неділю рано зілля копала, and regarded as the peak of her realism.
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