Михайло Коцюбинський. Цвіт яблуні

Михайло Коцюбинський

Work proposed for translation: 

Цвіт яблуні
Short stories (1901–1912)
Length: 220 pp.
Copyright: Public domain

Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi (1864–1913) was a well-known Ukrainian writer. A man of the fin de siècle era, he was one of the most prominent modernists in Ukrainian literature, a representative of impressionism and a master of psychological writing. He was educated at a theological school. He earned his living as a tutor, worked at the Odesa Phylloxera Commission, and then at the Chernihiv Provincial Council. Due to asthma and tuberculosis, he often had to seek treatment abroad (in Capri). In 1911, he received a lifetime scholarship from the Society of Supporters of Ukrainian Science, Literature and Art. Despite belonging to a specific historical era, Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi’s work is considered par excellence in Ukrainian culture. Some of Kotsiubynskyi’s works, with their images and plots, mood and themes, are firmly embedded in the consciousness of Ukrainians and are the hallmark of Ukrainian literary modernism. Kotsiubynskyi’s most famous work is the novel Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, which was the result of his fascination with the Carpathian region. The work became the basis for the world-famous film of the same name by Sergei Parajanov (1964, also known in English under the alternative title Wild Horses of Fire). However, Kotsiubynskyi’s is by no means the author of only one work. His oeuvre includes about fifty short stories, articles and essays as well as a rich epistolary legacy.

The situations in which the characters in Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi’s stories, included in the collection The Apple Tree Blossoms, find themselves or which they provoke touch on profound issues of the human psyche, self-awareness, and interpersonal relationships. These include, for example, passionate, almost insane love, flirting with death, the psychology of a murderer, and subtle self-reflection. Kotsiubynskyi can be called a researcher of extreme states of human consciousness and subconsciousness, when death is near and exaltation or even madness is a reality. His focus is not so much on psychological breakdown as on feelings, thoughts, decisions, and actions that go beyond the bounds of harmony. Kotsiubynskyi often likes unexpected, paradoxical twists in his works, which require reflection on the part of the reader. The writer achieves artistic effect through contrast: he describes extremely tense and complex situations in a broad, measured, and sometimes impressionistic manner. Kotsiubynskyi not only successfully describes extreme states, but also invents a language for this: laconic, expressive, full of symbolism and subtext.