User:JackieFidela/Ukrainian Folk Stories by Marko Vovchok

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Ukrainian Folk Stories is a collection of folk stories written by Marko Vovchok and translated by N. Pedan-Povil. Ukrainian Folk Stories was translated into English from the text Povisti ta opovidannia (Kyiv: Vydavnytstvo khudozhn'oi literary 'Dnipro' publishers, 1966). This collection compiles short stories written by Vovchok over the course of her career. The stories in this collection are compiled from Narodni opovidannia (Folk Stories), her first collection of short stories published in 1857, and in her second collection of folk tales, published in 1862. This article contains summaries of short stories from this translated collection.

List of Stories

 * The Sister (1857)
 * The Kozak Girl (1857)
 * The Chumak (1857)
 * Odarka (1857)
 * The Spell (1862)
 * The Dream (1857)
 * Horpyna (1857)
 * Redemption (1857)
 * The Mother-in-law (1857)
 * Father Andriy (1857)
 * Danylo Hourch (1857)
 * Instytutka
 * The Slacker (1862)
 * Two Sons (1862)
 * Mismatched (1862)

Plot
"Odarka" tells the story of Odarka, the young daughter of a serf family. Having just turned fifteen, she is requested by the landlord of the estate, a man who had "destroyed more than one girl's happiness." After she is taken to the main house, her parents and aunt hear nothing of her for a long time until she sneaks home. Odarka tells the family that she was threatened, beaten, and finally raped. Nobody in the household would help her out of fear of the master and because she was not the first girl to be used in such a way. The next day, she is collected back to the house by two servants who again emphasize their lack of agency in the matter. Instead of being taken back to the old master, Odarka and her aunt are given to the young master and his Polish wife, who was convinced to save Odarka by taking her as her servant. At the new manor, things do not get much better for Odarka. She is humiliated and forced to dance by her new mistress and the children of the other nobles. Odarka eventually falls ill from their torment and her homesickness. She dies soon after, reaching toward her home.

Themes
In this story, Vovchok focuses on the cruelty of the nobility. She outlines the way that master often treated young girls on their estates, and the attitudes of other serfs in the household who are unable or unwilling to look after each other. Vovchok also highlights the cruelty and violence that can be performed by mistresses. Although the young master's Polish wife initially seems to help Odarka by removing her from the old master's household, she eventually turns cruel toward to girl, calling her lazy and taking pleasure in her humiliation. She likes to make her dance until she collapses and the children of nobility throw stones at her.

Plot
"Instytutka" follows Ustyna, an orphan member of the serf class, who serves on the estate of an older woman. When the lady's granddaughter returns from studying in Kyiv, she is taken on as a personal servant for the young woman. The new addition to the household has even more hatred for the servants than her grandmother, ordering them around and punishing them for any perceived slight. Referred to throughout the story as "the young lady," she sees her education as useless and is focused on marrying a wealthy gentleman with a large estate. Despite her many suitors, she ends up falling in love with a local doctor with only a small estate. Although she is distressed by the doctor's lack of wealth, she agrees to marry him. Her grandmother promises that she will give her estate to her granddaughter and stay back to take care of it while the young lady goes away to her husband's small estate. Ustyna, the servant girl, is taken with them. While the husband has some compassion for serfs, he is ultimately overpowered by his wife and is not willing or able to shield them from her cruelties. At the new estate, Ustyna encounters other members of the household: Granny, the old housekeeper, Nazar, the diver, and Katrya, the cook and Nazar's wife. Ustyna eventually courts and falls in love with Prokip, another serf on the estate. Katrya is forced to try to earn the mistress' favor during the day and take care of her sick baby at night, eventually working herself so hard that her baby dies. Distraught by this, she is no longer useful to the mistress in the house and is sent out to the fields where she dies. A new cook is brought onto the estate from Moscow who caters to the young lady's whims. The young woman's grandmother dies. The young masters are expecting a child and in the middle of their announcement celebration, Prokip takes Ustyna to the young man and asks for permission to marry her. He agrees and eventually the young woman does as well after she is encouraged by her party guests. The young woman is even crueler to Ustyna after she and Prokip are married. One day, when Ustyna, Prokip, and Granny are picking apples, Granny gives some to some children. The young woman catches her and accuses her of stealing. She starts pushing and hitting Granny, and Prokip grabs her wrist to stop her. She then accuses Prokip of attacking her and sends him to be conscripted into the Muscovite troops. Ustyna takes this opportunity to leave the estate with Prokip, and they are able to rent a house in another town. There, they live in relative freedom, having occasional contact with Nazar and news of Granny. Eventually, the Muscovite troops must march out. Ustyna lived in the town for the next seven years, waiting for Prokip to come back, but she never heard from him again.

Themes
Vovchok's characteristic focus on the suffering serfs underwent at the hands of their masters is very present in this story. Vovchok neither shies away from depicting the hatred that masters felt for their serfs nor the violence they inflicted upon them. She details a scene in which the young lady almost strangles Ustyna to death for not setting her hair properly. The young lady is comforted for what has caused her distress while Ustyna is scolded and must be nursed back to health over the next months. Vovchok describes the nobility as both foolish and cruel. The young lady scorns her education and cares only about money, going so far as the cry that she is in love with someone so poor, even though that man is a doctor and owns an estate himself. Her husband, the young master, although he means well and tries to be nice to his servants, he is weak-willed and not able to stand up for his principles, even when he sees people being mistreated. In this story, Vovchok shows the different ways serfs respond the their harsh conditions. Some, like Katrya break under their oppression and die. Others are able to maintain some happiness, even going so far as to "get jolly for no reason at all," although even this highlights their oppression as she then writes "If we had been free, we would have sung." She also describes the serfs as having pride in themselves. When the young master tries to offer Katrya a ruble to make up for his wife's mistreatment in sending her to the fields after the death of her baby, she lets it fall into the dirt without taking it. The rest of the serfs leave it there as well, even though they are dearly in need of money. Prokip embodies the archetype of the rebellious serf who believes that there cannot be true freedom or happiness under the yoke of serfdom and is punished for his rebellion with military service.