January 7, 2016

A re-examination of Ivan Nechui-Levytstky

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Although the novels of Ivan Nechui-Levytskyi are required reading in schools across Ukraine, his work is virtually unknown outside Ukraine.  Only one of his works – the novel “Mykola Dzheria” – has been translated into English, and there has been virtually no scholarly writing about him in English.

That has changed with the publication of a new book by Maxim Tarnawsky, “The All-Encompassing Eye of Ukraine: Ivan Nechui-Levytsky’s Realist Prose,” a thorough and much-needed re-examination of the author and his work.

In his introduction, Prof. Tarnawsky says that the goal of this book is to create “an individualized portrait of Nechui.”  There is a chapter exploring Nechui’s biography, two devoted to Ukraine both as a subject and a theme in his writing, and three focusing on various qualities and characteristics of his writing.

During Nechui’s lifetime (1838-1918), the territory of Ukraine as we know it today was divided between the Russian and Austro Hungarian empires. Despite this, Nechui was very clear about the existence of Ukraine as a territory, a people, a culture and an identity, and his role as a Ukrainian writer in describing Ukraine in all its “breadth, complexity and peculiarity.”

Nechui felt that “Ukrainian writers must not limit themselves to describing only village life… our writers need to care about their own country, to describe all the social levels, all the life, all the people, that can be found on the territory of the Ukrainian tribe.”

It was Nechui’s devotion to Ukraine as subject matter that caused Ivan Franko, commenting on the 35th jubilee of Nechui’s writing career, to characterize him as the “all-encompassing eye of Ukraine” – that is, an author who captures the details of an entire nation.

Vitaly Chernetsky of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Kansas has praised this book as “an important contribution to Ukrainian literary studies, as well as to the scholarship on 19th-century realism and its complex relationship with questions of national identity. …a pioneering work that makes Nechui fresh, interesting, and relevant to our contemporary concerns.”

“The All-Encompassing Eye of Ukraine” is available in hardbound and eBook formats from the publisher for approximately $64 at www.utppublishing.com, and from Amazon.com (prices vary).

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