Sweet Darusya:A Tale of Two Villages by Maria Matios -2003- 159 pages- translated from the Ukrainian by Michael M. Naylan and Tytarenko-2016
Over the past ten years or so I have posted upon a number of authors originally from what is now known as the Ukraine. These include Gogol, Clarice Lispector and Josepth Roth as well as Yiddish Language authors. All of them left the Ukraine as soon as they could, most to escape pervasive Anti-Semitic pograms. Of course they are long since deceased. Today I will post upon an author many consider the best contemporary Ukrainian author,Maria Matios, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament since 2012.
The Guardian has a very insightful and elegant post on this work. I suggest those considering buying it, which I personally strongly endorse for anyone wanting to get into post independence Ukrainian literature, read The Guardian's review. I will just make a few observations on what struck me.
The linchpin character is Darusya, she is a deaf mute, a holy fool.In the Eastern Slavic tradition holy fools are considered to be touched by God and sacred. Their seeming insanity is a mask in the world of human beings where they must dwell, while they are believed to be privy to higher truths in the spiritual realm. Darusya is also part dervish with her penchant for dancing alone in a circular motion in her need to escape the world of reality that causes her pain. Much of the plot turns on her involvement with men.The story line proceeds backwards in time, starting in the early 1960s and going back to the World War Two period.
The setting is Bukovina (sometimes rendered as Bukovyna).Most of the action in the novel occurs in two neighboring villages called Cheremoshne in the mysterious Carpathian Mountains on opposite sides of the Cheremosh River. Educated Ukrainian readers would be familiar with the complex history of this region. My understanding of the events and attitudes depicted in the novel were greatly enhanced by an article in The Internet Enclopedia of the Ukraine. The region then as now is divided between Romania and the Ukraine. The residents have little sense of political identity other than to their villages. Jews and Roma were quite common before the Germans entered the area. We see them being deported.
A fascinating view of the reliance of people on magic thinking emerges. If your cow will not give milk or a woman is baren it is from a curse. In the prevailing ethos, if a woman is raped she is either denigrated as a whore or her husband has come home drunk. No one has any education beyond minimal literacy. They cannot really speak with Germans or Russians. They speak their own dialect.
When the Soviets invade, we see the impact of their imposition of collective farming on the residents. Petty Government officials of all sorts are looking for bribes, exhorting sex for food for resident's families. Both the Germans and the Russians engage in horrifying torture to find out where partisans are hiding. Then the partisans show up at your door demand food or torture you to see if you gave out any information on them.
"Sweet Darusya” (Solodka Darusya) was awarded the Ukrainian Book of the Year Award in 2004, and in 2005 Ms. Matios received the Taras Shevchenko Prize for the novel, the highest national literary honor in Ukraine. Prior to this English translation, “Sweet Darusya” appeared in eight other languages, including German, Italian and French. It is being made into a feature film in Ukraine.
Ms. Matios, a native of the Bukovyna region of Ukraine, lives in Kyiv, where she continues to write. She is the author of 19 volumes of fiction and poetry. Since 2012, she has been a national deputy in the Ukrainian Parliament." From the Ukrainian Weekly
https://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/internationally-acclaimed-ukrainian-novel-now-available-in-english-translation/
I hope she is safe.
Mel u
1 comment:
Sounds like a book worth reading. Thanks for the introduction.
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