Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko

Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko
Григорій Квітка-Основ'яненко
Kvitka-Osnovianenko, c. 1810[citation needed]
Kvitka-Osnovianenko, c. 1810[citation needed]
Born
Hryhorii Fedorovych Kvitka

18 November [O.S. 29 November] 1778
Osnova [uk], Sloboda Ukraine Governorate, Russian Empire
(now within Kharkiv, Ukraine)
Died8 August [O.S. 20 August] 1843 (aged 64)
Kharkiv, Russian Empire
Resting placeHoncharivka [uk], Kharkiv
Pen nameHrytsko Osnovianenko (Грицько Основ'яненко)
OccupationWriter
Language
CitizenshipRussian Empire
PeriodClassicism[1]
GenreFable, tale, short story, dramatic works
RelativesFedir Kvitka (father)
Andriy Kvitka [uk] (brother)
Signature

Hryhorii Fedorovych Kvitka-Osnovianenko (Ukrainian: Григорій Федорович Квітка-Основ'яненко; 29 November 1778 – 20 August 1843) was a Ukrainian writer, journalist, and playwright. Founder of Ukrainian classicist prose.[2] He was born in the vicinity of Kharkiv.

Life and work

Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko was born in 1778 in the village of Osnova [uk], Sloboda Ukraine Governorate (now within the city of Kharkiv), to a family of Ukrainian nobility.[3] He adopted the pen name "Osnovianenko," a reference to the village of his birth, when he embarked on his literary career.[4]

A deeply religious person, at the age of 23 Kvitka entered a monastery, but returned to civil life four years later.[1] Starting from 1812, Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko began his social activities, being appointed the director of a new regular lay theatre which opened in Kharkiv. The love for theatre, which he preserved through all his life, led him to become an author of theatrical drama works. In 1841 he wrote his "Kharkiv Theatre History".[5] Along with his theatrical activities, Kvitka-Osnovianenko also engaged in philanthropy and became the founder of an Institute for Noble Maidens. He also served as the local Marshal of the Nobility and headed the chamber of Kharkiv's criminal court.[1]

Starting his career as an author, in 1820-1822 Kvitka-Osnovianenko published his first works in Russian language.[1] In this he followed the steps of the majority of his contemporaries in the Ukrainian literary scene.[6]However, with time Kvitka-Osnovianenko became one of the earliest proponents of Ukrainian as a literary language and began publishing in the first Ukrainian literary journals printed in Kharkiv.[7] He corresponded respectfully with Taras Shevchenko, keeping up constantly with literary life. He was a friend of Nikolai Gogol, and it is possible that Gogol's play The Government Inspector was inspired by Kvitka-Osnovianenko's satiric drama The Visitor from the Capitol or Turmoil in a District Town, which has a very similar plot and cast of characters.[8]

In his works Kvitka-Osnovianenko initially followed Ivan Kotliarevsky's travesty tradition.[1] His Ukrainian-language works were mostly burlesque and satirical in nature, but he also wrote more serious prose, such as his sentimentalist novella Marusia,[6] which initiated the genre of Ukrainian classicist prose.[2] According to Kvitka's own statement about the novella, he wrote it "to prove to one unbeliever that something gentle and touching can be written in the Ukrainian language."[9]

He also tried his hand at the gothic genre with his "Dead Man’s Easter"[10] (1834).

Historical Novels

From the historical works of interest are the “Historical and Statistical Outline of Slobozhanshchyna” (1838), “On the Sloboda Regiments”, “Ukrainians” (1841) and “History of the Theater in Kharkiv” (1841).

In the 1830s, Kvitka composed a fantastic lyrical story about the founding of the city of Kharkiv in the middle of the 17th century with his ancestor Andriy Kvitka. This story, published in his collected works, is not supported by any source and has never been seriously considered by any historian.

The most famous works

  • Малоросийские анекдоты (Little Russian Anecdotes) - 1821-1822 (in Russian)
  • Шельменко-волосний писар (Shelmenko-volost clerk) - comedy, 1831[1]
  • Конотопська відьма (The Witch of Konotop) - 1833
  • Салдатський патрет (A Soldier's Portrait) - novella, 1833[1]
  • Маруся (Marusia) - novella, 1834-1837[1]
  • Сердешна Оксана (Poor Oksana) - 1834-1837[1]
  • Сватання на Гончарівці (The Courtship at Honcharivka) - comedy, 1836[1]
  • Шельменко-денщик (Shelmenko the Batman) - comedy, 1837[1]
  • Козир-дівка (The Trump Girl) - 1838
  • Пан Халявский (Mr. Khalyavsky) - 1839 (in Russian)[1]
  • Ганнуся (Hannusya) - 1839

Film adaptations

Films based on his works:

  • The Courtship at Honcharivka (1958)
  • Shelmenko the Batman (1910, 1911, 1957)
  • Shelmenko the Batman (1971)
  • The Witch (1990, 2 a; based on the story "The Witch of Konotop")

Documentary films about Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko

  • "Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko" (1979)
  • "Kvitka-Osnovianenko" (1988)

Critical reception

Kvitka-Osnovianenko's literary achievement has tended to be a polarizing subject for critics of Ukrainian culture. On the one hand, as one of the first popular writers to use the Ukrainian language, he is viewed a founding figure of Ukrainian literature and the "father of Ukrainian prose".[1] On the other hand, many prominent Ukrainian scholars, including Ivan Franko, Mykola Zerov, and Dmytro Chyzhevsky, viewed his work as reactionary and conservative and were skeptical of the sentimental, pastoral image that he painted of Ukraine and Ukrainians.[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Енциклопедія українознавства. Словникова частина (ЕУ-II). Vol. 3. p. 991.
  2. ^ a b "Ukraine - The arts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  3. ^ Smoliĭ V. A.; Onoprii︠e︡nko Oksana (2001). Golden book of Ukrainian elite. Kompanii︠a︡ "I︠E︡vroimidz︠h︡". ISBN 978-966-7867-11-9. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
  4. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica. 1973. ISBN 978-0-85229-173-3. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
  5. ^ kharkov.vbelous.net/english/famous/fam-art/kvitka.htm
  6. ^ a b Terras Victor (25 July 1990). Handbook of Russian Literature. Yale University Press. p. 241. ISBN 978-0-300-04868-1. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
  7. ^ a b Shkandrij Myroslav (9 October 2001). Russia and Ukraine: Literature and the Discourse of Empire from Napoleonic to Postcolonial Times. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-7735-2234-3. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
  8. ^ Peace Richard (30 April 2009). The Enigma of Gogol: An Examination of the Writings of N. V. Gogol and Their Place in the Russian Literary Tradition. Cambridge University Press. pp. 151–152. ISBN 978-0-521-11023-5. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
  9. ^ Potichnyj Peter J. (1992). Ukraine and Russia in Their Historical Encounter. CIUS Press. p. 242. ISBN 978-0-920862-84-1. Retrieved 15 April 2012.
  10. ^ Krys Svitlana, Between Comedy and Horror: The Gothic in Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko’s Dead Man’s Easter (1834).[dead link] Slavic and East European Journal (SEEJ) 55.3 (Fall 2011): 341-358

allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hryhorii_Kvitka-Osnovianenko