Гнат Хоткевич. Камінна душа

Гнат Хоткевич

Work proposed for translation:

Камінна душа 
A novel (1911)
Length: 384 pp.
Copyright: Public domain

Hnat Khotkevych (1877–1938) was a Ukrainian writer, composer, actor, researcher, and public figure. He received his engineering education at the Kharkiv Institute of Technology. He made his literary debut in 1897, when his first story was published. Due to his active participation in the revolutionary events of 1905, he was forced to emigrate to Galicia. Here he travelled extensively, gave public lectures, popularized Ukrainian songs, and organized the Hutsul Theatre, for which he wrote his own plays. He returned to Kharkiv when the communists came to power. Then for some time he taught the Ukrainian language and bandura, founded and headed a bandura band, developed textbooks on bandura playing, wrote the fundamental work Musical Instruments of the Ukrainian People, and continued to create literary works. He was imprisoned and executed on fabricated charges.

The novel Stone Soul was the result of the author’s travels through the Carpathian region during his forced emigration to Austrian Galicia. The main character Marusia, a priest’s wife, is bored with a monotonous existence with a man who is not interesting to her. So she succumbs to the charms of a passionate handsome man, the leader of the brigands Dmytro Marusiak, and runs away to him in the mountains. But the dreamy romantic life together with her beloved knight very soon turns to her in a different, not so pleasant way. Accustomed to everyday comfort, the delicate Marusia finds herself in conditions devoid of all the benefits of civilization, but full of constant stress and risk. She has to survive between brutal robbers and a mountain police captain who is trying to take revenge on her lover. In the end, the chain of the once awakened evil tightens around the heroine, leaving her no chance for salvation.