The Spirit of the Times: Selected Short Fiction by Olena Pchilka and Nataliya Kobrynska (Women's Voices in Ukrainian Literature, Vol. I)

This is the first volume of a six-volume series entitled Women's Voices in Ukrainian Literature. The purpose of the series is to make the short fiction of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Ukrainian women writers - early feminists and social activists - accessible to readers of English. The works selected range from vignettes and sketches to novelettes, and together they constitute a compelling social history of an era during which the mortar of social mores, religious beliefs, and gender distinctions began to crumble, wreaking havoc with personal and societal relations. What these authors had in common was an appreciation of the power of literature as a vehicle of social and political activism, and a commitment t o the amelioration of the position of women. Their exploration of gender issue s cuts across ethnic and social divisions, describes the often devastating consequences of social conditioning, and documents both the promise and the human cost of change. The translation of these works permits the message of these women to transcend temporal, geographical, and linguistic boundaries. The first author in Volume I, Olena Pchilka (1849-1930), herself a mother and grandmother from the upper echelons of society, challenged deeply ingrained norms governing the status of women in society, particularly among the privileged and the intellegentsia, and she did so with a tongue-in-cheek humour that makes her writing as delightful as it is informative and purposeful. The second author, Nataliya Kobrynska (1855-1920), was a leading theoretician of feminist thought whose concerns cut across what she saw as the artificial and divisive boundaries of social class. Her husband was as dedicated to the feminist cause as she was, and the couple devoted themselve s to raising the social and political consciousness of women. They urged women of privilege to convince their peasant sisters of the desirability and possibility of social change, established daycare centres and communal kitchens, organized reading circles, and fought for high schools for girls and universal suffrage. Kobrynska was a powerful writer, and her fiction presents a poignantly accurate picture of the social conditions of her day and their devastating effect on women.