Our Notes & References

One of the earliest Ukrainian literary children’s books, with an important preface by Metlinsky, and one of only sixteen books in Ukrainian published in the Russian Empire from 1848 to 1854 (Remy). Danylo Husar Struk of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine cites this edition, together with the 1853 fables by Hlibov, as those that “laid the beginnings for entertaining as well as didactic [Ukrainian] children’s literature”. Earlier titles had been limited to only primers and reading manuals.

A superb, fresh example in the original wrappers, with bibliophile provenance: from the fine collection of the Leningrad bibliophile Vsevolod Aleksandrovich Krylov (1898–1986). A mining engineer by training, Krylov also built an outstanding and wide-ranging library, with large portions now held by the Russian National Library and the Library of the All-Russian Pushkin Museum. An illustrated catalogue of part of his library has been published.

Very rare, as we could trace only two library holdings outside Ukraine (Harvard and National Library of the Czech Republic) and no copies at auctions worldwide, including Russia and Ukraine.

The small and fragile edition is also the only collection of Borovikovsky’s works published during his lifetime (Sharpaty, our translation here and elsewhere).

The Ukrainian poet, folklorist, and ethnographer Levko Borovykovsky (1806-89) was among the pioneers of Romanticism in Ukrainian literature. Drawing on folk art as a source of poetic imagery and aesthetic ideals, he collected and recorded sayings, songs, beliefs, and traditional remedies.

This collection — which “brought him recognition as a storyteller” (Encyclopedia of Ukraine) — unites 177 short verses of two to eight lines, resembling both fables and proverbs. Centred on everyday life, they touch on moral and ethical themes without offering didactic conclusions. Among the vices he mocks are envy, drunkenness, idleness, boastfulness, and the extortion of court officials (cf. Derkach). Several verses were adapted from Poland’s “La Fontaine”, Ignacy Krasicki, whose Bajki i przypowieści ([Fables and Parables], 1779) inspired the overall concept of Borovykovsky’s edition.

A clear concept: Ukrainian on a equal footing as Russian. The collection was published with the help of the poet and ethnographer Amvrosy Metlinsky (1814-70). In his preface, Metlinsky states that “none of the Russian dialects, neither South Russian nor Great Russian, could be identified with the general Russian language”: “by defining Great Russian as something different from the ‘language of the upper, educated stratum,’ Metlynsky placed the former on an equal footing with Little Russian. This was the first appearance of an idea that later became more prominent in the 1870s [among] Ukrainian national activists” (Remy).

Metlinsky continues: “Nowadays it seems strange […] to question whether one should write in a local dialect or not, without realising that everything has its proper place: one cannot replace the other, just as not everyone can wear the same clothes, or a flower exist without its petals, nor petals without roots. Rarely now does anyone think that those who have written well in any popular dialect would contribute more to literature by writing in the literary language. Such writers will always be few, and that is why their works are especially valuable for the study of the vernacular and for popular reading”. Such works, he adds, “are generally true to the spirit and life of the people, full of humour, playfulness, and wit, and can often serve as a true mirror of folk customs.” They enrich Ukrainian literature with “a branch of works that has scarcely existed before, yet can offer both edifying and entertaining reading […] being accessible to children while also provoking reflection in the cultivated and experienced mind” (quoted in Derkach).

Provenance

Lenkniga #53 (Soviet bookstore label to inside lower wrapper, with the (very high!) price of 20 rub.); V. A. Krylov (two different blue ink stamps to titles verso and last page); private American collection.

Bibliography

Boriak, Hennadii, Vasyl Baran, et al. Ukrainska identychnist i movne pytannia v Rosiiskii imperii: Sproba derzhavnoho rehuliuvannia (1847–1914). Zbirnyk dokumentiv i materialiv. Kyiv, Instytut istorii Ukrainy NAN Ukrainy, 2013; Derkach B. A. “Baikarska spadshchyna Levka Borovykovskoho” // Radianske literaturoznavstvo, 1975, no. 1, pp. 50-63; “Borovykovsky, Levko”. Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1, 1984. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies; Husar Struk, Danylo. “Children’s literature”. Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1, 1984. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies; Remy, Johannes. “Against All Odds: Ukrainian in the Russian Empire in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century” // Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol. 35, annual 2017, Gale Academic OneFile; Remy, Johannes. Brothers or Enemies: The Ukrainian National Movement and Russia from the 1840s to the 1870s, University of Toronto Press, 2016; Sharpatyi V. H. Borovykovskyi Levko Ivanovych // Entsyklopediia istorii Ukrainy: T. 1: A-V. NAN Ukrainy. Instytut istorii Ukrainy, Kyiv, Naukova dumka, 2003.