Our Notes & References

An important collection of folk legends from Ukrainian provinces on national heroes, historical events, the supernatural and quotidian. First edition, produced in the attractive Quarto format.

Banned shortly after publication; now scarce outside Russia and Ukraine, with no copies found at auctions in the West; OCLC locates a handful of holdings (UChicago, Cleveland, NYPL, Harvard, UToronto, Dartmouth, Stanford, and likely Princeton).

“[Kulish’s] heritage allows comparison with prominent figures of the Italian Renaissance. He was […] the author of the first Ukrainian historical novel, […] one of the foremost authorities on the Ukrainian language, and the creator of kulishivka, the orthographic system that became the foundation of modern standardised Ukrainian spelling” (Udod, our translation here and elsewhere). Regarded by Ivan Franko as “a leading star in Ukrainian writing [and] one of the luminaries of our literature”, Panteleimon Kulish (1819–97) was also among the authors of the first complete Ukrainian translation of the Bible (Vienna, 1903) and translated Goethe, Byron, and Shakespeare into Ukrainian.

Influenced by Mykhailo Maksymovych, an early champion of Ukrainian national culture, the young Kulish travelled through the Kyiv province in 1844–45 collecting ethnographic material. The resulting Ukrainskie narodnye predaniia records the living, melodic language of the Ukrainian provinces, with few exceptions: “I wrote everything down in shorthand, like songs, treasuring every turn of phrase and every word of the vernacular. I allowed myself to correct certain expressions only in legends brought to me by friends, a decision I now regret” (preface). Most legends and tales identify both the person who told it and their place.

The publication was withdrawn from circulation soon after Kulish’s arrest in 1847 for his involvement in the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, an anti-monarchist secret society advocating Ukrainian national autonomy and revival. “After two months in prison he was exiled for three years to Tula. Because his main offence had been writing a ‘Tale of the Ukrainian People,’ Kulish was forbidden to write” until the death of Nicholas I (Luckyj).

The collection is divided into three sections: historical tales envisioning the lives and deeds of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ivan Mazepa, the Haidamaks, and the Cossacks; fantastical legends, such as fairy tales and legends about princes and princesses, stepmothers and stepdaughters, animals, and werewolves; and finally, riddles and scenes from everyday life. The mention of “Book I” in the title suggests that Kulish intended to continue his collection with folk songs (as mentioned in the preface), though none were published.

With fine Soviet bibliophile provenance. The copy belonged to 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.

Provenance

V. A. Krylov (two different blue ink stamps to titles verso and last page).

Bibliography

Luckyj, George Stephen Nestor. “Kulish, Panteleimon”, Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 2004.

Udod O. A., Hruzin D. V. Kulish Panteleimon Oleksandrovych // Entsiklopediia istorii Ukrainy: T. 5, NAN Ukrainy, Naukova dumka, 2008.