Лариса Крушельницька. Рубали ліс…

Лариса Крушельницька

Work proposed for translation:

Рубали ліс… 
Fictionalised memoirs (2001)
Length: 320 pp.
Copyright: Publisher: info@astrolabium.com.ua

Larysa Krushelnytska (1928–2017) was a Ukrainian archaeologist, librarian, writer, and public figure. She was born into a family of Galician intellectuals and artists. In the unfavourable conditions for Ukrainian culture during the Polish occupation of Galicia, she moved with her family to Kharkiv in 1934, where most of her relatives were repressed, and she herself was miraculously evacuated to Lviv, to her mother. In 1943, she left for Vienna, then Germany, where she studied at the Art Academy in Stuttgart, but due to the racist policies of the regime, she was sent to forced labour at a factory in Singen-Hohentwiel. After returning to Lviv, she built a successful scientific career researching the archaeological cultures of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages. She led about 50 archaeological expeditions. From 1991 to 2003, she was the director of the Lviv Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In addition to numerous scientific works on archaeology, Larysa Krushelnytska is the author of the books They Cut Down the Forest… Memoirs of a Galician Woman (2001), Animals in My Life (2009), and From Today to Tomorrow… (2012). Her book of memoirs, They Cut Down the Forest…, had a wide public resonance and was awarded several prizes.

The book They Cut Down the Forest… Memoirs of a Galician Woman reveals not only the figures of the author’s family members, many of whom were active figures in culture and politics in Galicia, but also the historical vicissitudes of her time. The drama of the story builds on contrast: a happy childhood is interrupted by a move to Soviet Ukraine, where the Krushelnytskyi family is destroyed by Stalin’s repressive machine. The author recounts various critical situations that she encountered throughout her life: survival in Kharkiv, the story of her rescue and return to her mother in Lviv, her departure from Galicia during the war to Vienna, then to Stuttgart, forced labour at an aluminium factory in Singen-Hohentwiel, and the Via Dolorosa of her return home from Germany after the war. Ukraine and foreign lands, the tragedy of Ukrainian history in the 20th century and faith in the rebirth of the nation, humiliation and dignity, the cruelty of the world and everyday rays of happiness, the absurdity of totalitarian systems and “internal emigration” — within these coordinates, the author reflects not only on her own experience, but also on the experience of the entire 20th century.