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Vynnychenko, Volodymyr
Vynnychenko began writing while he was a student, during which time he produced stories
depicting the working-class milieu, which he knew best. His first story, ‘Krasa i syla’ (Beauty
and Strength, 1902), created a sensation and brought him almost immediate recognition. In
both his heroes (the working class protagonists, the déclassé, petty criminals, and, finally,
revolutionaries) and his themes he abandoned the former populist didactic piety for the more
risqué contemporary revolutionary life, which is often tinged with explicit sexual tensions
and wry humor, and is presented in a dynamic, impressionistic narrative style and a
language bold enough to use the most current patois (surzhyk). His short stories were
extremely popular as a result. More a poser of problems than a stylist, Vynnychenko did not
polish his work; often it seems hurried and even tendentious. The desire to postulate
solutions to various social and moral problems led Vynnychenko to drama, where he could
more readily examine, as if in a moral laboratory, the consistency of human behavior with the
accepted morality, especially the morality of the ‘new revolutionary man.’ In the 20 plays he
wrote (many of them translated and staged in various theaters of Europe) Vynnychenko
examined closely the frequent disparity between deed and ‘noble word,’ aim and moral code.
The proclaimed equality of the sexes is debunked in Bazar (Bazaar, 1910), the notion of
spiritual love, in Dysharmoniia (Disharmony, 1906), the acceptability of ‘surrogate
motherhood,’ in Zakon (The Law, 1923), and the belief that ‘a noble end justifies the means,’
in Hrikh (The Sin, 1920). Other no less interesting plays are Velykyi Molokh (The Grand
Moloch, 1907), Brekhnia (The Lie, 1910), and Chorna pantera i bilyi vedmid’ (The Black Panther
and the White Bear, 1911). Having found that moral codes were often set to protect the
interests of a dominant group, Vynnychenko sought to find a way in which humans could
live a truly moral life, and came to the notion ‘To thine own self be true’ as the only viable
moral law. Promulgated best in his novel Chesnist’ z soboiu (Honesty with Oneself, 1906), the
notion provoked misunderstanding and criticism. Vynnychenko was accused of strict
individualism and total amorality.
Until the late 1980s Vynnychenko was proscribed in Ukraine, and his collected works have
not been republished since the 24-volume edition of 1926–30. In the West interest in him was
maintained primarily as a result of the efforts of Hryhory Kostiuk, under whose guidance the
standing Commission for the Study and Publication of the Heritage of Volodymyr
Vynnychenko was established at the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the US.
The commission is the custodian of the Vynnychenko archives, housed at Columbia
University in New York.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kostiuk, H. Volodymyr Vynnychenko ta ioho doba (New York 1980)
Articles in Part III of Studies in Ukrainian Literature, ed Bohdan Rubchak. Vol 16 of AUA
(1984–5)
Stelmashenko, V. (comp). Volodymyr Vynnychenko: Anotovana bibliohrafiia (Edmonton 1989)
Hnidan, O.; Dem'ianivs’ka, L.S. Volodymyr Vynnychenko: Zhyttia, diial’nist’, tvorchist’ (Kyiv 1996)
Panchenko, V. Budynok z khymeramy: Tvorchist’ Volodymyra Vynnychenka 1900–1920 rr. u
ievropeis’komu literaturnomu konteksti (Kirovohrad 1998)
List of related links from Encyclopedia of Ukraine pointing to Vynnychenko, Volodymyr entry:
6 Barabash, Yurii
7 Bila Tserkva
8 Central Rada
9 Communism
17 History of Ukraine
18 Hlushchenko, Mykola
19 Hromads’ka dumka
+ 20 Records >>
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