Panas Myrnyi. The Whore

Panas Myrnyi

Work proposed for translation:

The Whore
A novel (1883–1919)
Length: 660 pp.
Copyright: Public domain

Panas Myrnyi (Panas Rudchenko, 1849–1920) was a well-known Ukrainian writer and public figure. During his lifetime, he had a fairly successful career as a civil servant, but he is best known for his writing. His first works were published in 1872, but under a pseudonym, which the writer used to hide from the repressive policies of the Russian Empire against Ukrainian literature. He maintained close ties with leading figures in Ukrainian culture and was actively involved in public life. Myrnyi is considered a classic of Ukrainian literature and one of the best realist prose writers. In his texts, he brilliantly depicts the society of his time and insightfully analyses the thoughts and feelings of its representatives — the characters in his novels. The writer not only dissects his contemporaries, but also raises important and relevant questions about the relationship between the village and the city, the individual and society, the material and the spiritual.

The main character of the novel The Whore, Khrystia, is a Ukrainian girl from a poor peasant family. The death of her father as well as a conflict with influential villagers force her to go to work in the city. Society seeks to pay her as little as possible for her work, but is ready to do a lot for the beauty of her body. Therefore, having experienced many misfortunes from influential and wealthy people, she succumbs to the temptation to sell her body for a better life, rejecting all the moral norms of the time. Naturally, this temptation is deceptive, which we can see in Khrystia’s life path as well as in the fates of other characters in the novel. The author describes in detail the difficulties and humiliations that weak people experience, presents an apt panorama of a society that has lost its moral guidelines, in which greed and lust rule, and status and money decide everything. Depicting the world of that time, the author raises issues of moral values, the meaning of human life, and the understanding of happiness, and analyses numerous types of relationships between people of different ages and social status, penetratingly examining their peculiarities.