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Забобон
Повість «Забобон» стала вершинним явищем не лише у творчості Леся Мартовича, а й неперехідним художнім надбанням української літератури. Це своєрідний тематичний та ідейно-художній синтез всієї творчості Леся Мартовича. Це — соціальна сатира на «мертві душі» галицької провінції і водночас широке полотно нужденного, безпросвітного і безправного життя галицького села за часів "небожки" австро-угорської монархії.
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В сатиричній повісті відомого українського письменника-демократа Леся Мартовича (1871-1916) змальовано життя і побут провінційного попівства Галичини за часів Австро-Угорської монархії, його паразитизм, моральне убозтво розклад, байдужість до інтересів народних мас, розкрито злиденне існування трудового селянства, яке шукає шляхів поліпшення своєї тяжкої долі.
* * *
Один з перших українських психологічних романів.
Текст повісті за виданням 1985 року тут:
* * *
В сатиричній повісті відомого українського письменника-демократа Леся Мартовича (1871-1916) змальовано життя і побут провінційного попівства Галичини за часів Австро-Угорської монархії, його паразитизм, моральне убозтво розклад, байдужість до інтересів народних мас, розкрито злиденне існування трудового селянства, яке шукає шляхів поліпшення своєї тяжкої долі.
* * *
Один з перших українських психологічних романів.
Текст повісті за виданням 1985 року тут:
- GenresUkrainian Literature
336 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1917
33 people want to read
About the author
Лесь Мартович
7 books1 followerукраїнський письменник, правник і громадський діяч, доктор права.
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September 5, 2023
This is a satirical novel about the lives of rural Ukrainians under Austria-Hungary that actively criticizes the then-popular approach of using parish priests as the cornerstone of nation-building. I’ve read it now because this year I plan to read more of Ukrainian classics, so I took From Kulish to the present day: 100 iconic novels and novellas in Ukrainian (Ukr) and decided to go through the list as it is composed, i.e. chronologically. This is the #16 in the list.
A few words about the author – Les’ Martovych (Лесь Мартович) (1871 -- 1916) was a Ukrainian writer, lawyer and public figure, Doctor of Law. Because he had a relatively small number of fiction works, which were written in Pokuttya dialect of Ukrainian, he isn’t in the school program and therefore not widely known even locally (even here on Goodreads only one review). It is an interesting fact that his father taught himself to read and write, which helped him rise from a hired hand to a clerk. The Martovych family belonged to an ancient Jewish rabbinical family, the last representative of which (the writer's grandfather) converted to Christianity and was expelled from the Jewish community (kahal).
This is the only novel of the author, which was almost lost when during WW1 russian soldiers looted the house where his papers were collected and seeing no interest in them, just threw them away. However, the papers were saved by his friends and became a basis for Martovych’s only novel, published posthumously in 1917. The English title can be directly translated as a “Superstition” but I guess a more correct modern term is “Instant Karma”.
The book follows chiefly two men, a village priest Father Matchuk and his son Slavko. The Father is small and round and his only pleasure in life is to criticize anyone. Quite often such blaming is either based on nothing or even if formally has a reason, it isn’t relevant, as for example in a scene where his married daughter visited them and brought her 1.5-years-old daughter Olya with them:
At supper, Olya became the life of the party. Even Slavko stroked her face, while the grandma held her on her lap and gave her milk. Olya got used to new people right away. When the grandma spooned milk to give her a drink, Olya would stretch out her hand, wave it around, and say to everyone: "Me! Me! Me!" Later, when she was no longer hungry, she would gurgle the milk from a spoon and pour it out. Finally, she wanted a spoon. She grabbed it with her whole fist and pulled it away from her, saying: "Mine! Mine!" When she managed to get the spoon, she slammed it down on the table with all her might and laughed heartily, showing her two front teeth.
- "Give it to grandma, give it to grandma!" the grandma cried, trying to take the spoon away from her.
But Olya lifted it up and threw it to the ground. The spoon rang, and Olya laughed.
- "Why did you throw that?" the priest called out. He wanted to say, "Are you deliberately hurting your grandpa?" but these words froze on his lips because he had no chance to say them. Slavko leaned over to pick up the spoon, while the grandma and Halia spoke to Olya at the same time. It was as if the priest was being stabbed in the lips with unsaid words that would not let him rest.
The son, Slavko is different, but not much better – he failed all exams in school, faked for his parents a document that he passed, and spends all his free time digging a hole with a stick and covering it back with earth. He has a superstition that gave a name to the novel – that if anything good happens to him to give him pleasure, instantly something bad is about to happen, therefore it is best to do nothing or to intentionally seek something bad (like trying to catch a cold), so that something good may follow. He lacks initiative to such an extent, that
Today, at noon, he decided to kill himself. Obviously, only in case if someone brought him a revolver and said: one, two, three, shoot! Or if someone led him in the woods, put a noose around his neck, and said: hang yourself! Before that, of course, he would have to help him get on a branch.
Both the father and the son are like very young children, completely helpless, so to help them survive there are women around them, and because these women are usually of the same class (Slavko’s mother, their neighbor), they are mostly managers while most daily work is done by hired hands. Unlike a lot of earlier Ukrainian authors who wrote about rural life and the trauma of serfdom, where peasants were either heroes or victims, here approach is much more skeptical: yes, illiteracy and quotidian hard toil limit personal growth but also negative imprint have attitudes and heavy drinking. The attitudes are like:
First of all, they did not see the slightest difference between a merchant and a thief. They set me an example. "If I buy a pig and resell it at a profit, I am stealing from the one who buys it, because the pig did not create for me those few crowns. Either I stole from the one who sold it to me or from the one who bought from me!" That's why they didn't think they were any better than Hrynko, who was inspecting my chain. They also gave me the argument that a merchant steals from everyone, whether poor or rich. The big thief steals either from a bank or from a rich man. That's why he does less harm than a merchant. They saw only thieves in the city: every mister is a thief. … They convinced me that we should learn from the Poles, because they steal votes in elections and have more representatives than they should.
And here is a snippet showing the horrors of alcohol:
The dinner started with Hrynka's bring. They drank vodka and ate sausage. Ivan’s wife[she have birth this very morning!] also poured vodka for her family, her young children, two boys and a daughter, who were still awake but sitting in a row on the boards that made up the bed. She was convinced that vodka makes children healthy. When she gave them a piece of sausage, the first one to grab it ran to the stove and onto the back of the stove. There, it would turn to the wall and, holding the sausage tightly in his hands, tear it with his teeth as much as it could fit into his mouth. However, he would dart its eyes to the sides to see if anyone was sneaking in to snatch it away. He was just like a dog that grabs a bone and hides with it in an inaccessible place. If someone moves nearby, the dog growls.
After dinner, we drank beer, and the midwife, not so much drunk as dizzy with stuffiness and sniffles, said to the wife:
"And remember, Yvanichka, that a hundred crowns have been allocated for the funeral of this child. As soon as he dies, I will bring you the money with my own hands. I'll put it on the table here in front of you. If only the Mother of Christ could help me get home like that!
Yvanichka was very drunk: she had been drinking since before dawn. She leaned her elbow on the table and nodded her head piously at every word the midwife said. Then she spoke to her tenderly:
"Hey! Don't kowtow, ma'am, because I believe you anyway. My eyes can see that this child cannot live a long life. He is so tiny, so delicate, like a fluff. You don't know how to feed it. But what God gives, a Christian eats. We don't eat anything else ourselves, only tubers and cabbage, and it has to get used to it. Soon, if he gets unaccustomed, he will get a tummy like a tambourine, but what can you do? It's all a gift from God. Let's thank him, the heavenly one, for giving birth to tubers and cabbages!
Overall an interesting ‘realism’ approach to people’s vows instead of earlier romantic one. It isn’t an easy read but I’m glad I’ve read it.
A few words about the author – Les’ Martovych (Лесь Мартович) (1871 -- 1916) was a Ukrainian writer, lawyer and public figure, Doctor of Law. Because he had a relatively small number of fiction works, which were written in Pokuttya dialect of Ukrainian, he isn’t in the school program and therefore not widely known even locally (even here on Goodreads only one review). It is an interesting fact that his father taught himself to read and write, which helped him rise from a hired hand to a clerk. The Martovych family belonged to an ancient Jewish rabbinical family, the last representative of which (the writer's grandfather) converted to Christianity and was expelled from the Jewish community (kahal).
This is the only novel of the author, which was almost lost when during WW1 russian soldiers looted the house where his papers were collected and seeing no interest in them, just threw them away. However, the papers were saved by his friends and became a basis for Martovych’s only novel, published posthumously in 1917. The English title can be directly translated as a “Superstition” but I guess a more correct modern term is “Instant Karma”.
The book follows chiefly two men, a village priest Father Matchuk and his son Slavko. The Father is small and round and his only pleasure in life is to criticize anyone. Quite often such blaming is either based on nothing or even if formally has a reason, it isn’t relevant, as for example in a scene where his married daughter visited them and brought her 1.5-years-old daughter Olya with them:
At supper, Olya became the life of the party. Even Slavko stroked her face, while the grandma held her on her lap and gave her milk. Olya got used to new people right away. When the grandma spooned milk to give her a drink, Olya would stretch out her hand, wave it around, and say to everyone: "Me! Me! Me!" Later, when she was no longer hungry, she would gurgle the milk from a spoon and pour it out. Finally, she wanted a spoon. She grabbed it with her whole fist and pulled it away from her, saying: "Mine! Mine!" When she managed to get the spoon, she slammed it down on the table with all her might and laughed heartily, showing her two front teeth.
- "Give it to grandma, give it to grandma!" the grandma cried, trying to take the spoon away from her.
But Olya lifted it up and threw it to the ground. The spoon rang, and Olya laughed.
- "Why did you throw that?" the priest called out. He wanted to say, "Are you deliberately hurting your grandpa?" but these words froze on his lips because he had no chance to say them. Slavko leaned over to pick up the spoon, while the grandma and Halia spoke to Olya at the same time. It was as if the priest was being stabbed in the lips with unsaid words that would not let him rest.
The son, Slavko is different, but not much better – he failed all exams in school, faked for his parents a document that he passed, and spends all his free time digging a hole with a stick and covering it back with earth. He has a superstition that gave a name to the novel – that if anything good happens to him to give him pleasure, instantly something bad is about to happen, therefore it is best to do nothing or to intentionally seek something bad (like trying to catch a cold), so that something good may follow. He lacks initiative to such an extent, that
Today, at noon, he decided to kill himself. Obviously, only in case if someone brought him a revolver and said: one, two, three, shoot! Or if someone led him in the woods, put a noose around his neck, and said: hang yourself! Before that, of course, he would have to help him get on a branch.
Both the father and the son are like very young children, completely helpless, so to help them survive there are women around them, and because these women are usually of the same class (Slavko’s mother, their neighbor), they are mostly managers while most daily work is done by hired hands. Unlike a lot of earlier Ukrainian authors who wrote about rural life and the trauma of serfdom, where peasants were either heroes or victims, here approach is much more skeptical: yes, illiteracy and quotidian hard toil limit personal growth but also negative imprint have attitudes and heavy drinking. The attitudes are like:
First of all, they did not see the slightest difference between a merchant and a thief. They set me an example. "If I buy a pig and resell it at a profit, I am stealing from the one who buys it, because the pig did not create for me those few crowns. Either I stole from the one who sold it to me or from the one who bought from me!" That's why they didn't think they were any better than Hrynko, who was inspecting my chain. They also gave me the argument that a merchant steals from everyone, whether poor or rich. The big thief steals either from a bank or from a rich man. That's why he does less harm than a merchant. They saw only thieves in the city: every mister is a thief. … They convinced me that we should learn from the Poles, because they steal votes in elections and have more representatives than they should.
And here is a snippet showing the horrors of alcohol:
The dinner started with Hrynka's bring. They drank vodka and ate sausage. Ivan’s wife[she have birth this very morning!] also poured vodka for her family, her young children, two boys and a daughter, who were still awake but sitting in a row on the boards that made up the bed. She was convinced that vodka makes children healthy. When she gave them a piece of sausage, the first one to grab it ran to the stove and onto the back of the stove. There, it would turn to the wall and, holding the sausage tightly in his hands, tear it with his teeth as much as it could fit into his mouth. However, he would dart its eyes to the sides to see if anyone was sneaking in to snatch it away. He was just like a dog that grabs a bone and hides with it in an inaccessible place. If someone moves nearby, the dog growls.
After dinner, we drank beer, and the midwife, not so much drunk as dizzy with stuffiness and sniffles, said to the wife:
"And remember, Yvanichka, that a hundred crowns have been allocated for the funeral of this child. As soon as he dies, I will bring you the money with my own hands. I'll put it on the table here in front of you. If only the Mother of Christ could help me get home like that!
Yvanichka was very drunk: she had been drinking since before dawn. She leaned her elbow on the table and nodded her head piously at every word the midwife said. Then she spoke to her tenderly:
"Hey! Don't kowtow, ma'am, because I believe you anyway. My eyes can see that this child cannot live a long life. He is so tiny, so delicate, like a fluff. You don't know how to feed it. But what God gives, a Christian eats. We don't eat anything else ourselves, only tubers and cabbage, and it has to get used to it. Soon, if he gets unaccustomed, he will get a tummy like a tambourine, but what can you do? It's all a gift from God. Let's thank him, the heavenly one, for giving birth to tubers and cabbages!
Overall an interesting ‘realism’ approach to people’s vows instead of earlier romantic one. It isn’t an easy read but I’m glad I’ve read it.
February 18, 2020
класний твір. сатирично-реалістичний образ галицької провінції поч. ХХ століття.
тут є: попи - відсталі (дуже добре виписаний типаж такого причіпливого дрібничкового попика), гедоністичні і навіть клерикальні; шляхта (колоритний образ алкаша-депутата); селяни-злодії і селяни свідомі, і навіть те й те разом потроху; "хруні" - тобто продажні виборці; десь то тут то там - інтеліґенція; урядовці, які відкрито визнають, що їхнім головним призначенням є робити всякі зловживання. картинка моральности тогочасного суспільства в кількох зрізах.
а крім того - дуже добрий образ закомплексованого незреалізованого (напів)інтеліґента. сама назва повісті "Забобон" відображає переживання дорослого героя, що властиві радше підліткам (якщо не дітям) - і це як спогад з надр біографії кожного з нас: не наступати на люки, підмічати номери автівок... і т.п. а далі - давати милостиню (бо колись ти можеш опинитися в ролі жебрака); не-сміятися-аби-потім-не-плакати і т.ін. насправді такі забобони досі є чи не наріжним каменем хваленої галицької релігійності ("духовності"), якій гріш ціна, бо вона дуже примітивізує Того, до кого релігія мала б бути звернена, а найголовніше - дезорієнтує в житті. і це чудово підмітив знавець людей, правник, адвокат і письменник Лесь Мартович.
п.с. досить багато смішних моментів
тут є: попи - відсталі (дуже добре виписаний типаж такого причіпливого дрібничкового попика), гедоністичні і навіть клерикальні; шляхта (колоритний образ алкаша-депутата); селяни-злодії і селяни свідомі, і навіть те й те разом потроху; "хруні" - тобто продажні виборці; десь то тут то там - інтеліґенція; урядовці, які відкрито визнають, що їхнім головним призначенням є робити всякі зловживання. картинка моральности тогочасного суспільства в кількох зрізах.
а крім того - дуже добрий образ закомплексованого незреалізованого (напів)інтеліґента. сама назва повісті "Забобон" відображає переживання дорослого героя, що властиві радше підліткам (якщо не дітям) - і це як спогад з надр біографії кожного з нас: не наступати на люки, підмічати номери автівок... і т.п. а далі - давати милостиню (бо колись ти можеш опинитися в ролі жебрака); не-сміятися-аби-потім-не-плакати і т.ін. насправді такі забобони досі є чи не наріжним каменем хваленої галицької релігійності ("духовності"), якій гріш ціна, бо вона дуже примітивізує Того, до кого релігія мала б бути звернена, а найголовніше - дезорієнтує в житті. і це чудово підмітив знавець людей, правник, адвокат і письменник Лесь Мартович.
п.с. досить багато смішних моментів
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