1864–1913
Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi
Classic of Ukrainian prose
The Hutsul novella that Sergei Parajanov turned into Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors was written by a man from Vinnytsia in Podillia after a trip to the Carpathians. Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi is one of the great masters of Ukrainian prose and a classic of Ukrainian modernism.
Key accomplishments
- The novella Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1911), about the life of the Hutsuls
- The novella Fata Morgana, about the Ukrainian village during the revolution of 1905–1907
- The stories “Intermezzo”, “The Apple Blossom” and “On the Rock”
- Headed the Prosvita society in Chernihiv (1906–1908)
A tutor under police watch
Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi was born in 1864 in Vinnytsia, the son of a minor civil servant, and spent his childhood in various small towns of Podillia. He studied at the Sharhorod religious school and the Kamianets-Podilskyi Theological Seminary, but did not finish it, and from then until the end of his life he was under police surveillance. To support his family he worked as a private tutor, and in 1892 he joined the secret Brotherhood of Taras.
From vineyards to Chernihiv
In the 1890s Kotsiubynskyi spent several years fighting a vineyard pest for the phylloxera commission in Bessarabia and Crimea. In 1898 he moved to Chernihiv, where he worked as a zemstvo statistician and in 1906–1908 headed the local Prosvita society. Early on he got to know Galician public figures, including Ivan Franko, and published in Galician periodicals.
Prose written in impressions
He began as a realist and grew into one of the most gifted Ukrainian modernists. His impressionist stories “On the Rock”, “The Apple Blossom” and “Intermezzo” combine subtle psychology with lyricism. The novella Fata Morgana depicts the Ukrainian village during the revolution of 1905–1907, and Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1911), written after a stay in the Carpathians, portrays the life of the Hutsuls with their beliefs and legends. Because of heart disease he went for treatment to the island of Capri. He died in Kyiv in 1913 and was buried in Chernihiv.
Why he is still read today
Kotsiubynskyi’s language and style influenced Ukrainian prose writers and poets of the early 20th century. In 1964 Sergei Parajanov made the film Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors based on his novella. Since 1927 a museum has operated in the Vinnytsia house where the writer was born; another museum was opened in Chernihiv.
