Disharmony and Other Plays

Description

Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1880-1951) was an extraordinary writer and political figure of the Ukrainian generation that was active in the early twentieth century. In his stories, novels, and plays he broke with populist and literary-realist traditions and rebelled against the social mores and political system of the tsarist empire, often raising provocative questions about morality and authenticity. Vynnychenko wrote most of his twenty-three plays while he lived as an émigré (1907-14) to escape repression by the Russian authorities for his revolutionary-socialist activities. In Paris he became acquainted with and influenced by the modernist movements of the time. Although the radical nature of Vynnychenko’s plays often provoked a hostile critical response, he remained extremely popular among readers and audiences in both parts of divided Ukraine and in Russia proper. A number of his plays were staged in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Holland, and other countries interested in expressionist theater. Declared a persona non grata in 1921 by the Soviets for his political leadership during the turbulent years of Ukrainian independence, by the 1930s Vynnychenko and his works had been expunged from official scholarship in the USSR and the Soviet literary canon. After the emergence of independent Ukraine, many of his works have been republished and generated renewed interest in him as a writer, political thinker, and statesman. But in the English-speaking world, Vynnychenko is still largely unknown. This volume of six of his best-known plays, translated by Professor George Mihaychuk of Georgetown University, corrects this lacuna and introduces readers to a masterful dramatist.

Apart form George Mihaychuk’s extensive introductory essay discussing Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s plays in the context of the European and Ukrainian drama and theatre of his time, this book contains English translations of the following dramas: Disharmony (1906), Bazaar (1910), Lies (1910), Black Panther and White Bear (1911), Young Blood (1913), and Sin (1919).