Rival Cultural Strategies in Ukrainian Culture of the late XVIII - mid-XIX Centuries 4 страница
Elements of realism appear mainly in her short stories about Ukrainian peasants living under serfdom and about the difficult plight of women. Other works continue the tradition of ethnographic romanticism and are typified by strong characters and willful heroes. Also in that tradition are the children's stories ‘”Nine Brothers and the Tenth Sister Halia” (1863), ‘Karmeliuk’ (1865), and ‘Marusia’ (1871). Vovchok's prose markedly influenced the development of the Ukrainian short story in the second half of the 19th century.
Nechui-Levytsky, Ivan ( 1838 - 1918 ). Writer. Upon graduating from the Kyiv Theological Academy (1865) he taught Russian language, history, and geography in the Poltava Theological Seminary (1865–6) and, later, in the gymnasiums in Kalisz, Siedlce (1867–72), and Kishinev (1873–4). He began writing in 1865, but because of Russian imperial censorship his works appeared only in Galician periodicals, such as the journal Pravda, Dilo, and Zoria (Lviv). The first to be published were two stories, ‘Dvi moskovky’ (Two Muscovite Women) and ‘Horyslavs’ka nich, abo Rybalka Panas Krut’ (A Night in Horyslav, or Panas Krut the Fisherman), both of which appeared in Pravda in 1868. He mainly wrote stories, in which he combined the styles of the novel and the folkloric narrative. His works about the lives of peasants and laborers established him as a master of Ukrainian classical prose and as the creator of the Ukrainian realist narrative. They include Mykola Dzheria (1878), “Kaidash's Family” (1879), Burlachka (The Wandering Girl, 1880), and the cycle of short stories “Granny Paraska and Granny Palazhka” (1874–1908). The Ukrainian clergy was described and satirized in “Old-World Priests and Their Wives” (1888), “In the Midst of Enemies” (1893), and Afons’kyi proidysvit (The Vagabond from Athos, 1890). The Polish aristocracy and the Polonized Ukrainian middle class are portrayed in Prychepa (The Hanger-on, 1869) and Zhyvtsem pokhovani (Buried Alive, 1898). Nechui-Levytsky was the first to provide fictional characterizations of various classes of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, ranging from students and teachers to high-ranking members of the Russian civil service. Against a background of colonial repression and thoroughgoing Russification Nechui-Levytsky sought to depict the stirrings of national consciousness in the Ukrainian intelligentsia and their attempts to ‘place first on the agenda the inevitability of national liberation’ (Oleksander Biletsky). Those attempts on the part of his protagonists usually bring about their downfall. Such is the theme of Khmary (Clouds, 1874), the first Ukrainian work of fiction to address the problem, of Nad Chornym Morem (On the Black Sea Coast, 1890), of Navizhena (The Madwoman, 1891), and of many other works. Nechui-Levytsky also wrote historical fiction (mainly under the influence of Mykola Kostomarov. His plays included the historical dramas Marusia Bohuslavka (1875) and V dymu ta polum'ï (In the Smoke and the Flames, 1911), the comedies Na Kozhum'iakakh (In Kozhumiaky; adapted by Mykhailo Starytsky in 1875 and published as Za dvoma zaitsiamy [Chasing After Two Hares]) and Holodnomu i open’ky m'iaso (For a Starving Man Even Mushrooms Are Meat, 1887), and children's interludes.
Nechui-Levytsky also wrote popular works on Ukrainian mythology, history, and ethnography, and numerous articles about Ukrainian theater and the various people active in it. In his articles on Ukrainian literature, such as ‘S'ohochasne literaturne priamuvannia’ (The Contemporary Literary Trend, 1878, 1884) and ‘Ukraïnstvo na literaturnykh pozvakh z Moskovshchynoiu’ (The Ukrainian Community in Literary Litigation with Russia, 1891), he championed the idea of a national literature formed independently of outside influences, and asserted that ‘Russian literature is useless [as a model] for Ukraine.’
Kulish, Panteleimon( 1819 - 1897 ). Prominent writer, historian, ethnographer, and translator. He was born into an impoverished Cossack-gentry family. After completing only five years at the Novhorod-Siverskyi gymnasium he enrolled at Kyiv University in 1837 but was not allowed to finish his studies because he was not a noble. He obtained a teaching position in Lutsk in 1840. There he wrote his first historical novel in Russian, Mikhail Charnyshenko, ili Malorossiia vosem’desiat let nazad (Mykhailo Charnyshenko, or Little Russia Eighty Years Ago, 2 vols, 1843). Mykhailo Maksymovych promoted Kulish's literary efforts and published several of his early stories. His first longer work written in Ukrainian was the epic poem ‘Ukraïna’ (Ukraine, 1843). In 1843–5 Kulish taught in Kyiv and studied Ukrainian history and ethnography. There he befriended Taras Shevchenko, Mykola Kostomarov, and Vasyl Bilozersky; their circle later became the nucleus of the secret Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. Another new friend, the Polish writer Michał Grabowski, also had a great influence on him.
In 1845 P. Pletnev, the rector of Saint Petersburg University, invited Kulish to teach at the university. In Saint Petersburg Kulish finished in Ukrainian his major historical novel, “The Black Council, a Chronicle of the Year 1663”, of which excerpts were published in Russian translation in Muscovite journals in 1845–6. To prepare him for a professorial career, the Imperial Academy of Sciences granted him a scholarship to do research abroad. In 1847 he married O. Bilozerska (the future writer Hanna Barvinok) and set out with her for Prague. En route he was arrested by the tsarist police in Warsaw for belonging to the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, which had been uncovered at the time. After two months in prison he was exiled for three years to Tula. Because his main offence had been writing a ‘Tale of the Ukrainian People,’ Kulish was forbidden to write. He maintained his innocence, but his interrogation and closed trial and subsequent loss of freedom were for him a deep trauma.
In 1850 he was allowed to return to Saint Petersburg. While working as an editor there, he tried, unsuccessfully, to establish himself as a Russian littérateur, publishing in the journal Sovremennik the autobiographical novella “The History of Uliana Terentevna” (1852), the historical novel ‘Aleksei Odnorog’ (1852–3), and the novella ‘Iakov Iakovlevich.’ He worked on a long biography of Nikolai Gogol, finishing it in 1856 while visiting S. Aksakov.
Soon his Ukrainian interests took the upper hand. After living for a while on a khutir in Ukraine and in Kyiv, Kulish returned to Saint Petersburg. There he established a Ukrainian printing press and, after being allowed to publish under his own name, issued two splendid volumes of “Notes on Southern Rus” (1856–7), a rich collection of Ukrainian folklore, ethnography, and literature in which he introduced a new orthography (Kulishivka). In 1857 he finally published Chorna rada in its entirety, in both Ukrainian and Russian. In the epilogue to the Russian edition he pleaded for the first time for the political unity of Ukraine and Russia while stressing their cultural separateness. He also published a primer (Hramatka, 1857) for use in Sunday schools, a volume of Marko Vovchok's folk tales (1858), and the Ukrainian almanac Khata (Saint Petersburg) (Home, 1860). ‘Maior’ (Major), his Russian novella about his life in Ukraine, appeared in Russkii vestnik in 1859. In 1860–2 he was actively involved in the Ukrainian journal Osnova (Saint Petersburg). In 1862 he published a separate collection of his own poems, Dosvitky (Glimmers of Dawn).
In 1864 Kulish accepted a high Russian official post in Warsaw. From there he developed further the contacts he had made earlier with Galician intellectuals and contributed to several Lviv periodicals. When he was asked to end these contacts he refused and resigned in 1867. After traveling abroad he returned to Saint Petersburg. For a while he edited a Russian government publication. Most of his time he devoted to the study of Ukrainian history, particularly of the Cossack period. His earlier romantic view of the Cossacks gave way to a new and very critical appraisal of them, which had already been evident in Chorna rada. He published several long articles on the Cossacks entitled ‘Mal'ovana haidamachchyna’ (The Painted Haidamaka Era, 1876) and a major study in three volumes, Istoriia vossoedineniia Rusi (The History of the Reunification of Rus’, 1874–7). In the latter he expressed admiration for Peter I and Catherine II and made some uncomplimentary remarks about Taras Shevchenko, thereby alienating most of the Ukrainian reading public. At about the same time, Kulish began translating the Bible, a work that, with the help of Ivan Puliui and Ivan Nechui-Levytsky, was finally completed only after his death. His translation of the Psalter was published in Galicia in 1871.
After the 1876 Ems Ukase forbade Ukrainian publications in the Russian Empire, Kulish strengthened his ties with Galicia. In 1881 he went to Lviv, and in 1882 his collection of poems and essays, Khutorna poeziia (Khutir Poetry), his Ukrainian translations of William Shakespeare's Othello, Troilus and Cressida, and Comedy of Errors, and an appeal for Ukrainian-Polish understanding, Krashanka rusynam i poliakam na Velykden’ 1882 roku (A Painted Egg for the Ruthenians and the Poles at Easter 1882), were published there. In 1883 he published his long poem ‘Mahomet i Khadyza’ (Muhammad and Khadijah), showing his deep interest in Islam. Kulish returned to Russian-ruled Ukraine, settled on his khutir Motronivka, and remained there with his wife until his death. Cut off from most Ukrainian activists, he conducted a wide correspondence and worked on translations of the Bible and the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Byron.
Both during his life and after his death Kulish was a controversial figure. His emphasis on the development of a separate, indigenous Ukrainian high culture while advocating political union with Russia found little sympathy among Ukrainian populists. After 1850, during his intense writing and publishing activity, he remained aloof from organized Ukrainian community life. His attempts at influencing Ukrainian cultural activities in Austrian-ruled Galicia were often misunderstood. Kulish's uncompromising attitude and his egocentrism were often stumbling blocks in his relations with others. Yet even his opponents granted him his achievements. During the modernist period of Ukrainian literature interest in Kulish was revived by M. Sribliansky (see Mykyta Shapoval) and Mykola Yevshan. Dubove lystia (Oak Leaves), an almanac in his memory, appeared in Kyiv in 1903, and editions of his works were published in Kyiv (5 vols) and Lviv (6 vols) in 1908–10.
Franko, Ivan (1856 -1916 ). Writer, scholar, political and civic leader, publicist; like Taras Shevchenko, one of Ukraine's greatest creative geniuses. The son of a village blacksmith, Franko graduated from the Drohobych gymnasium in 1875 and began to study classical philology and Ukrainian language and literature at Lviv University. His first literary works—poetry (1874) and the novel Petriï i Dovbushchuky (1875)—were published in the students' magazine Druh, whose editorial board he joined in 1875. Franko's political and publishing activities and his correspondence with Mykhailo Drahomanov attracted the attention of the police, and in 1877 he was arrested along with Mykhailo Pavlyk, Ostap Terletsky, and others for spreading socialist propaganda. After spending eight months in prison Franko returned to political work with even greater fervor. He helped organize workers' groups in Lviv, contributed articles to the Polish newspaper Praca, and studied the works of K. Marx and F. Engels. In 1878 he founded with Pavlyk, the magazine Hromads’kyi druh, which was confiscated by the authorities but resumed publication under the names Dzvin and Molot. In 1880 Franko was arrested again and charged with inciting peasants against the authorities. After serving a three-month term, he was released but was kept under police surveillance and was forced to discontinue his university studies.
During the first period of his creative work Franko wrote political poems, such as ‘Kameniari’ (The Stonecutters, 1878), ‘Vichnyi revoliutsioner’ (The Eternal Revolutionary, 1880), and ‘Ne pora ...’ (This Is Not the Time ..., 1880), which became patriotic anthems and influenced the outlook of a whole generation; the novels Boa constrictor (1878), Boryslav smiiet’sia (Boryslav Is Laughing, 1881), and Zakhar Berkut (1883); and a series of literary and journalistic articles. In 1881 Franko co-published the monthly S’vit, and after its closing in 1882 he edited the journal Zoria (Lviv) and the newspaper Dilo (1883–5). Leaving the populists, who were apprehensive about his radical socialist and revolutionary ideas, Franko tried to set up an independent journal; to find support, he made two trips to Kyiv, in 1885 and 1886. In May 1886 he married O. Khoruzhynska in Kyiv. When the journal failed, Franko joined the staff of a Polish newspaper, Kurjer Lwowski. In referring to the decade (1887–97) that he spent working for the Polish press (he also worked for Przyjaciel ludu) and the German press (Die Zeit), Franko said that he was ‘doing hired labor for the neighbors.’
For a while in 1888 Franko was a contributor to the journal Pravda. His ties with compatriots from Dnieper Ukraine led to a third arrest in 1889. In the following year, with the support of Mykhailo Drahomanov, Franko co-founded the Ruthenian-Ukrainian Radical party and drew up its program. With Mykhailo Pavlyk, he published the party's organs Narod (1890–5) and Khliborob (Lviv, Kolomyia) (1891–5). In 1895, 1897, and 1898 he was the Radical party's candidate for a seat in the Austrian Parliament and the Galician Diet but lost the elections because of manipulations of the administration and provocations of the opposition. In 1899 a crisis arose in the Radical party, and Franko joined the populists in founding the National Democratic party, in which he was active until 1904, when he retired from political life. For many years Franko collaborated in the sociopolitical field with M. Drahomanov, whom he regarded highly as a ‘European political leader,’ but eventually their views on socialism and the national question diverged. Franko parted with Drahomanov, accusing him of tying Ukraine's fate to that of Russia.
Besides his political and literary work Franko continued his university studies, first at Chernivtsi University (1891), where he prepared a dissertation on Ivan Vyshensky, and then at Vienna University, where on 1 July 1893 he defended a doctoral dissertation on the spiritual romance Barlaam and Josaphat under the supervision of the eminent Slavist Vatroslav Jagić. In 1894 Franko was appointed lecturer in the history of Ukrainian literature at Lviv University but failed to obtain the chair of Ukrainian literature because of opposition from Vicegerent Kazimierz Badeni and Galician reactionary circles. In 1894–7 he and his wife published the journal Zhytie i slovo, in which many of his articles appeared, among them ‘Sotsiializm i sotsiial-demokratyzm (Socialism and Social Democracy, 1898), a severe criticism of Ukrainian Social Democracy and the socialism of Marx and Engels. In the introduction to the poetry collection Mii izmarahd (My Emerald, 1898) Franko continued his attack on Marxism as ‘a religion founded on dogmas of hatred and class struggle.’
With Mykhailo Hrushevsky's coming to Lviv in 1894, Franko became closely associated with the Shevchenko Scientific Society. In 1899 he became a full member of the society and in 1904 an honorary member. Most of his scholarly works, historical and literary notes, and reviews appeared in Zapysky Naukovoho tovarystva im. Shevchenka Franko worked in the Ethnographic Commission of the Shevchenko Scientific Society and headed the Philological Section (1898–1908). Through the efforts of Franko and Hrushevsky the Shevchenko Scientific Society became akin to an academy of sciences on the eve of the First World War. In 1897 Franko's article in Die Zeit in which he called Adam Mickiewicz the poet of treason (‘Der Dichter des Verrates’) led to the end of his career as a journalist. Henceforth, Franko devoted himself completely to editing Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk (Lviv 1898–1906) with Hrushevsky and Volodymyr Hnatiuk. Actually, Franko did all the editing. In 1898 the Ukrainian community celebrated the 25th anniversary of Franko's work as a writer.
In 1908 Franko's health began to decline rapidly. Yet, he continued to work to the end of his life. In this last period he wrote Narys istoriï ukraïns’ko-rus’koï literatury do 1890 r. (Outline of the History of Ukrainian-Ruthenian Literature to 1890, 1910) and Studiï nad ukraïns’kymy narodnymy pisniamy (Studies of Ukrainian Folk Songs, 1913) and did numerous translations of ancient poetry. In 1913 all Ukraine celebrated the 40th anniversary of his literary work.
With his many gifts, encyclopedic knowledge, and uncommon capacity for work, Franko made outstanding contributions to many areas of Ukrainian culture. He was a poet, prose writer, playwright, critic, literary historian, translator, and publisher. The themes of his literary works were drawn from the life and struggle of his own people and from sources of world culture: Eastern cultures and the classical and Renaissance traditions. He was a ‘golden bridge’ between Ukrainian and world literatures.
Franko was one of the first realists in Ukrainian literature and the most outstanding poet of the post-Shevchenko period. His second collection, Z vershyn i nyzyn (From the Heights and the Depths, 1887, expanded 1893), which included the masterpieces of his social lyrical poetry, such as ‘Tovarysham z tiurmy’ (To Comrades from Prison), ‘Vichnyi revoliutsioner,’ ‘Kameniari,’ ‘Zemle moia’ (My Land), and ‘Tiuremni sonety’ (Prison Sonnets), broke new ground. It radicalized the younger generation and for this reason was banned in Ukraine under Russia. Franko's Ziv’iale lystia (Withered Leaves, 1896) marks the culmination of his love poetry. Philosophical themes predominated in the collection Mii izmarahd (1898)—reflections on good and evil, beauty, fidelity, duty, and the meaning of life. But the collection also contained some social poetry that depicted the suffering of the Ukrainian people—’Po selakh’ (Through the Villages), ‘Do Brazyliï’ (To Brazil), etc. In the collection Iz dniv zhurby (From the Days of Sorrow, 1900) the poet reflected on his personal fate. The collection Semper tiro (1906) is a poetic statement of the revolutionary poet's own faith. Franko displayed his poetic skills in large epic poems such as Pans’ki zharty (A Landlord's Jests, 1887), Surka (1890), Smert’ Kaïna (The Death of Cain, 1889), and Ivan Vyshens’kyi (1900). His greatest poem, “Moses”, 1905, which in a biblical setting deals with the conflict between a leader and his people and proclaims the ideal of service to one's people, was based to a large extent on autobiographical material.
Franko's prose works include over 100 short stories and dozens of novels. His earliest prose works (beginning in 1877) form the Boryslav cycle, which painted a vivid picture and gave a profound analysis of the social evils that plagued Galicia at the time. The impoverishment and proletarianization of the Galician peasants are the basic themes of the collections V poti chola (In the Sweat of the Brow, 1890) and Halyts’ki obrazky (Galician Pictures, 1885), which include some autobiographical stories such as ‘Malyi Myron’ (Little Myron), ‘Hrytseva shkil’na nauka’ (Hryts's School Lesson), ‘Olivets’‘ (The Pencil), and ‘Schönschreiben’. His greatest masterpieces of prose are the novel Boa constrictor (1878) and the social novel Boryslav smiiet’sia (1881), which for the first time depict the incipient forms of revolutionary struggle among the workers and the spontaneous awakening of workingclass consciousness. Zakhar Berkut (1883), a historical novel based on ancient Ukrainian chronicles, presents the heroic resistance of Ukrainian highlanders to the Mongols in 1241. Franko's other historical novels are “Unwilling Hero” (1904), dealing with the 1848 revolution in Lviv, and “The Great Noise” (1907), dealing with the abolition of serfdom. Franko dealt with the moral decay of the leading circles in contemporary Galician society in the novels “For the Home Hearth” (1897), Osnovy suspil’nosty (The Foundations of Society, 1895), and “Crossed Paths” (1900). The novel Lel’ i Polel’ (1887) is didactic in character. Franko's prose is noted for its variety of themes, as well as its realistic presentation of the life of the different social strata.
In drama Franko proved himself a master of the sociopsychological and historical play and of comedy. His first attempts in this area date back to his gymnasium days—Iuhurta (1873), Try kniazi na odyn prestol (Three Princes for One Throne, 1874), and others. He wrote the largest number of his plays in the 1890s. His best plays are the sociopsychological drama Ukradene shchastia (Stolen Happiness, 1894) and the historical drama in verse Son kniazia Sviatoslava (The Dream of Prince Sviatoslav, 1895). Of his longer plays the comedies Riabyna (The Rowan Tree, 1886) and Uchytel’ (The Teacher, 1896) are also well known. His best-known one-act plays are Ostannii kreitsar (The Last Kreutzer, 1879), Budka ch. 27 (Hut No. 27, 1893), Kam’iana dusha (The Stone Soul, 1895), Maister Chyrniak (Master Chyrniak, 1896), and Sud sv. Mykolaia (The Trial of Saint Nicholas, 1920). Franko contributed several masterpieces to children's literature, including Lys Mykyta (Fox Mykyta, 1890), Pryhody Don-Kikhota (The Adventures of Don Quixote, 1891), Abu-Kazemovi kaptsi (Abu-Kasim's Slippers, 1895), Koly shche zviri hovoryly (When Animals Still Talked, 1899), and Koval’ Bassim (Bassim the Blacksmith, 1900). Special mention must be made of Franko's work as a translator, which he carried on throughout his life. He translated masterpieces from 14 languages by such famous authors as Homer, Dante, William Shakespeare, J. Goethe, E. Zola, B. Bjørnson, Aleksandr Pushkin, M. Lermontov, N. Chernyshevsky, A. Herzen, N. Nekrasov, A. Mickiewicz, W. Gomulicki, K. Havlíček-Borovský, J. Neruda, J. Machar, H. Ibsen, H. Heine, and others.
Starting with his doctoral dissertation (1893) and qualifying thesis “Analysis of Shevchenko's ‘The Servant Girl,”’ (1895), Franko's works on the theory and history of literature and criticism were an important contribution to Ukrainian literary studies. His largest scholarly work was the five-volume “Apocrypha and Legends from Ukrainian Manuscripts” (1896–1910), a monumental collection of texts and scholarly analysis. Among his works on old and medieval literature were “Carpatho-Ruthenian Literature of the 17th–18th Centuries” (1900), “Saint Clement in Korsun” ( 1906), and materials on the history of Old Ukrainian drama, particularly of the vertep “On the History of the Ukrainian Puppet Theater of the 18th Century” (1906). Franko's theoretical views on the purpose of literature were expressed in “On the Secrets of Poetic Creativity” (1898) and “The Theory and Development of the History of Literature” (1899). He emphasized the social basis of literary work but accepted esthetic qualities as essential to its evaluation. In his studies of literary monuments Franko used the comparative and historical-cultural approach.
In the area of linguistics Franko produced several studies of the Ukrainian literary language, including “Etymology and Phonetics in Southern Ruthenian Literature” (1894), “The Literary Language and Dialects” (1907). He defended the view that there is only one Ukrainian literary language, based primarily on the Dnieper dialects and enriched with dialects from Western Ukraine. For his philological contributions Franko was awarded an honorary doctorate by Kharkiv University in 1906. He was also elected to a number of Slavic scholarly associations. In the field of ethnography and folklore Franko collected a wealth of source material and wrote a series of studies and articles about the clothing, food, art, and folk beliefs of the Galician people. In 1898–1913 Franko served as chairman of the Ethnographic Commission of the Shevchenko Scientific Society and co-edited Etnohrafichnyi zbirnyk with Volodymyr Hnatiuk. His main studies of folklore are “Something about Boryslav” (1882), “Women's Servitude in Ruthenian Folk Songs” (1883), “How Folk Songs Originate” (1887), ‘The Soldier's Song’ (1888).
Franko formulated his philosophical, sociological, and political ideas in the following studies: “Scholarship and Its Attitude to the Working Classes” (1878), “Reflections on Evolution in the History of Mankind” (1881–2), and “The Newest Trends in Ethnology” (1895). His article ‘Sotsiializm i sotsiial-demokratyzm’ (1897) is a critique of ‘scientific socialism’ and the materialist conception of history. ‘”What Is Progress” (1903) is a survey of sociocultural development and a critique of the communist concept of the state, while “Social Action, the Social Question, and Socialism” (1904) is an analysis of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky's pastoral letter on the social question and an essay on the causes of social injustice.
Franko's works in economics deal with the condition of the workers and peasants from a historical viewpoint: About a hundred published works, most of them dealing with the peasant movement and the 1848 revolution in Galicia and with Ukrainian-Polish relations, were the subjects of Franko's sociological, sociopolitical, and historical-economic studies.
Franko's journalistic work evolved with his outlook and was governed by his scientific approach. Hence, it is often difficult to distinguish his scholarly articles from his journalistic writings. Franko regarded Ukraine as a sovereign entity belonging to ‘the circle of free nations.’ At the same time he devoted much attention to the defense of universal human rights. Franko first became politically active in a circle of Russophile secondary school students. Soon after he left it and joined the populist camp. As a student he was a fervent advocate of socialism and studied Marx and Engels, but later he attacked it vehemently. In general, Franko evolved in his thinking from radical to a progressive national democrat. The evolution of his views is reflected in his numerous journalistic articles.
In fine arts realism became popular because of the activity of the Peredvizhniki, a group of artists established in St. Petersburg that promoted enlightenment through travelling exhibitions of pictures portrayed the conditions of contemporary life, particularly of the peasants, and depicting landscapes. Several Ukrainian born artists were the members or exhibited with the Peredvizhniki (N. Ge, I. Repin, S. Vasilkovsky).
In the late 19th century, with the rise of the Peredvizhniki society of painters who opposed the dogmatic imitation of classical art forms, genre painting came to enjoy great popularity in the Russian Empire, including Ukraine. Depicting primarily scenes from village life, the Ukrainian representatives of the Peredvizhniki, such as Kyriak Kostandi, Ilia Repin, or Mykola Pymonenko, worked in realist and naturalist styles and were more concerned with realistic portrayals than with stylistic innovation. Consequently, in the wake of formalist experimentation in the early 20th century, originally radical in nature, the Peredvizhniki society became a bastion of conservatism and opposed modernist trends in Ukrainian art.
Genre painting. A style of painting characterized by the depiction of scenes from everyday life. Ukrainian genre painting usually depicts village life. Early examples of genre painting in Ukraine include works by Vasilii Shternberg (Easter in Ukraine), Ivan Soshenko (Boys Fishing), and Taras Shevchenko (In the Apiary and A Peasant Family). With the rise of the Peredvizhniki group of painters in the late 19th century, genre painting came to enjoy great popularity in the Russian Empire, including Ukraine. At that time Kostiantyn Trutovsky (Ukrainian Market and Girls at the Well), Ilia Repin (Evening Party and Village Musicians), Mykola Bodarevsky (Wedding in Ukraine), and Mykola Pymonenko (At the Market) were among the more prominent genre painters. Later works depicting everyday life were painted by, among others, Porfyrii Martynovych, Ivan Izhakevych, Fotii Krasytsky, Amvrosii Zhdakha, Fedir Krychevsky, Ivan Severyn, Oleksander Murashko, and Anatol Petrytsky, many of whom were associated with the Peredvizhniki, and by the Western Ukrainians Olena Kulchytska, Ivan Trush, Mykola Ivasiuk, Yosyp Bokshai, Osyp Kurylas, and V. Yarotsky.
Peredvizhniki (Itinerants). A name applied to members of the Russian Society of Itinerant Art Exhibitions. It was founded in 1870 by Ivan Kramskoi, Nikolai Ge, and 13 other artists who had left the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts in protest against its rigid neoclassical dicta. In order to reach the widest audience possible, the society organized regular traveling exhibitions throughout the Russian Empire, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa in their tours. Over the years the society attracted artists from various parts of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. Among the Ukrainians who joined it were Kyriak Kostandi, Arkhyp Kuindzhi, Mykola Kuznetsov, Oleksander Murashko, Leonid Pozen, Mykola Pymonenko, Petro Nilus, Ilia Repin, Serhii Svitoslavsky, and Mykola Yaroshenko. Ukrainians who took part in the society's exhibitions but were not members were Petro Levchenko, Solomon Kyshynivsky, and Yevhen Bukovetsky. The Peredvizhniki worked in realist and naturalist styles and concentrated on landscape art, portraiture, and genre painting. Typical of the society's Ukrainian offshoot are works such as Kostandi's Among the People (1885) and Early Spring (1892), and Pymonenko's Wedding (The Kiev Gubernia) (1891) and Young People (At the Well) (1909). The Peredvizhniki were more concerned with realistic portrayals than with stylistic innovation. Consequently, in the wake of formalist experimentation the society, originally radical in nature, became a bastion of conservatism. In 1923 the society amalgamated with the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia.