Валер’ян Підмогильний. Син

Валер’ян Підмогильний

Work proposed for translation:

Син
Prose (1918–1928)
Length: 416 pp.
Copyright: Public domain

Valerian Pidmohylnyi (1901–1937) is a Ukrainian writer, one of the founders of existentialism in Ukrainian literature, a representative of the so-called “Executed Renaissance”. He received his education at the University of Katerynoslav, majoring in law. In 1920, his first collection of short stories Works. Volume 1 was published. Later, Pidmohylnyi moved to Kyiv, where he became an active participant in the literary groups Association of Writers (Aspis) and MARS (Workshop of Revolutionary Word). In addition to his writing, he translated the works of Honoré de Balzac, Guy de Maupassant, and Denis Diderot. In 1928, his most famous novel, The City, was published in Kharkiv, an urban work that became important in the development of Ukrainian literature. The writer openly criticized Stalin’s repressions, the Holodomor, and the policy of collectivization. This led to his arrest in 1934. Accused of counterrevolutionary activities, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in the Solovetskyi camp. But in 1937 he was shot in the Sandarmokh tract along with other Ukrainian cultural figures.

The collection Son includes, in particular, the story of the same name, which tells of a man who, during the height of the famine of 1921–1923, tries to take care of his sick mother. The work sounds the dilemma of choice: to preserve one’s own life or to sacrifice it for the sake of preserving human dignity. In another story, the author tells of the half-crazy prophet Ivan Bosyi, who predicts famine and calls on the peasants to fight against the communist occupiers. He gathers crowds in a church devastated by the communists, and there he blesses the people for war with the “Antichrist”. In the story Haydamak, a young rebel is sentenced to be shot, and he finds himself in the depths of death anxiety. The descriptions of the fear of death are so accurate that it seems as if the author is recalling what he really experienced. The collection also includes the author’s unsurpassed magnum opus — the urban novel The City. A sensual and at the same time deeply philosophical reflection on the evolution of a young writer who, as if symbolizing the creation of Ukrainian urban culture, moves from his village to Kyiv, breaks ties with his past and recklessly builds a career. In this work, we get acquainted with Pidmohylnyi the intellectual, the pioneer of existentialism in Ukrainian literature, who masterfully depicts the psychological world and moral adventures of the main character.