Pantelejmon Kulisch

Pantelejmon Kulisch

Kulišovka

Pantelejmon Oleksandrowytsch Kulish ( Ukrainian Пантелеймон Олександрович Куліш , scientific transliteration. Pantelejmon Oleksandrovyč Kuliš , July 26 ^{. Jul} / 7. August  1819 ^greg. In Woronisch , Chernigov Governorate , Russian Empire ; † 14 February 1897 in Motronovka , Chernigov Governorate, Russian Empire ) was a Ukrainian writer , poet , folklorist , ethnographer , critic , editor , historian and publisher .

He is considered to be the creator of the "Kulishivka" ( Кулішівка ), an earlier version of the Ukrainian alphabet . In the 19th century he was one of the leading personalities of the Ukrainian educated class, who suddenly found himself in a competition for popularity with his long-time friend Taras Shevchenko , but Kulisch's moderate attitude to political questions and above all his negative attitude towards the Cossack movement , which is expressed in his historical works, led to the loss of his popularity among Ukrainophiles. During the period of Soviet rule, Kulish was hardly mentioned in schools in the program of Ukrainian literature .

Life

Childhood and youth

He was born in the Voronisch city of the former Ujezd Hluchiw in the Chernigov governorate (now Shostka Oblast Sumy ) and was the child of the second marriage of Oleksandr Andrijowytsch Kulisch - a wealthy farmer from a Cossack family with Ekaterina, the daughter of a Cossack captain. On the farm near Voronisch, he heard various fairy tales , legends and folk songs from his mother during his childhood .

His “spiritual mother” was a woman from the neighboring farm, Uljana Terentijivna Muschylowska, who had insisted on an education at the grammar school in Nowhorod- Siverskyj . Kulisch later brought closer information about the first conscious years of his life and learning in his stories "Istorija Uljany Terentjewny" 1852, "Fekluscha" 1856, and "Jakow Jakowlewitsch". His first literary work, however, was the story "Cygan" (The Gypsy), which he wrote on the basis of folk tales heard by his mother .

Since the late 1830s, Kulisch was a freelance listener at St. Vladimir University in Kiev . However, he never became a university student, and attending lectures ended in 1841 because Kulisch had no records to prove his noble origins. As a result, he also had no right to a higher education. At this time, "Malorosijsski opowidannja" in Russian: "O tom, ot tschego w mestetschke Voronezhe vyssoch Peschewzow staw" and "O tom, čto slučilos' s kozakom Burdjugom na Zelenoj nedele" as well as a story based on Ognennyj " zmej ".

Thanks to the patronage of the school inspector Michail Yusefowitsch , Kulisch got a job as a teacher at a noble school in Lutsk . At the time he wrote the historical novel "Michailo Tscharnyshenko ...", the poetic-historical chronicle "Ukraina" and the story "Orisja" in Russian.

He later worked in Kiev and Rovno . When the magazine "Sovremennik" (The Contemporary) started publishing the first parts of his famous novel "Tschorna rada" in 1845, the rector of the University of Saint Petersburg Pyotr Pletnjow ( Пётр Александрович Плетнёв ) invited him to be the editor of the magazine "Sovremennik" , moved to Petersburg and offered him the post of senior teacher at a grammar school and that of a lecturer in Russian for foreign students at the Petersburg University.

Kulisch's wife Hanna Barwinok 1847

First difficulties

Two years later, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences sent him on a business trip to Western Europe to study Slavic languages , history, art and culture. He is traveling with his 18-year-old wife Hanna Barwinok , whom he married on January 22, 1847. She was the sister of Wassyl Biloserskyj , at the wedding Taras Shevchenko was one of the best man. But already in Warsaw Kulisch was arrested as a member of the " Kyrill-und-Method-Fraternity " and sent back to Saint Petersburg, where he was interrogated over a period of three months. His participation in an anti-government organization could not be proven, nonetheless the verdict was: “Although the affiliation to the named company could not be determined, friendly relations with all its members existed and his published works can be viewed ambiguously on this basis Thoughts on the right to separate existence independent of the government - sentenced to four months imprisonment in Alexei-Ravelin prison and then to service in Vologda ”.

After he showed "sincere repentance," his wife's high-ranking friends stood up for him, and after his wife's personal intercession, the verdict was softened somewhat. He was sent to the criminal justice department of the hospital for two months , and from there he went into exile in Tula . Despite the plight and uncomfortable conditions in Tula, Kulisch wrote "Istoriju Borissa Godunowa i Dmitrija Samoswanza", the historical novel "Severjaki", which was later published under the name "Alexei Odnorog", an autobiographical novel in a period of three years and three months in verse "Evgeni Onegin naschego wremeni / Eugene Onegin our time" and the novel "Petr Ivanovich Beresin i ego semeistwo, ili Lyudi, reschiwschijesja wo chto by to ni stalo byt stschastliwymi". At the same time he studied European languages, read the novels of Sir Walter Scott , Charles Dickens , the poetry of G. Byron and FR Chateaubriand and dealt with the ideas of Rousseau . After a lot of effort and trouble, Kulisch got a post in the governor's office and some time later he started working in an unofficial department of the magazine "Tul'skie gubernskie vedomosti / Tula province news".

Ascent

Portrait of Pantelejmon Kulisch by Taras Shevchenko between 1843 and 1847

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the reign of Nicholas I , probably due to the proposals of his wife, Pyotr Pletnev and Senator Arkady Kochubei ( Аркадий Васильевич Кочубей ) Kulisch returned to Saint Petersburg, where he continued to work as a writer. Since he did not have the right to publish his works, the works of Kulisch found access to the public under the pseudonym "Nikolaj M." in Nekrasov's "Sovremennik" and in "Sapiski o schisni Nikolaja Vasiljewitscha Gogolja".

In the Poltava governorate , where Kulisch wanted to buy his own farm, the acquaintance there with Nikolai Gogol , the author of “ Taras Bulba ” and “ The Dead Souls ”, prompted him to start preparing Gogol's six-volume works and letters to start. At the same time Kulisch prepared a two-volume edition of folklore, as well as historical-ethnographic content "Sapyssy pro piwdennu russ" ( Notes on the South of Rus ) and published it in St. Petersburg in the years 1856-1857. The collection was written in "Kulischiwka", a Ukrainian phonetic alphabet developed by Kulisch himself, which later proved useful for the publication of " Kobsar " in 1860 and for the magazine "Osnova".

The year 1857 was creatively successful for Pantelejmon Kulisch. In this year the novel "Čorna rada" (Russian: "Čornaja rada" or "Čornyj sovet") appeared, as well as his Ukrainian primer and the books "Gramatka" and "Narodni opovidannja" by Marko Wowtschok , edited and published by Kulisch, a separate tipography opened up. Together with his wife he came to Moscow, first stayed at his friend ST Aksakov's guest, then took the woman to the Motronovka farm in what is now Chernihiv Oblast , from where she went on a trip to Europe in 1858 . The trip brought Kulisch to a disappointment in European civilization - on the other hand, patriarchal village life became an ideal for him. In Saint Petersburg, Kulisch began to publish an almanac "Chata" because he did not get permission to publish a magazine.

During this time his wife's brother tried to publish the first issue of the Ukrainian magazine "Osnova". Together with his wife, who had started to publish short stories under the pseudonym G. Barvinok, Kulisch let himself be carried away by the preparation of the material for this literary and political work. Kulisch began to write “Istorični opovidannja” - popular scientific essays on the history of Ukraine - “Chmel´niščina” and “Vygovščina”. These essays were published in "Osnova" in 1861. His first lyric poems and poems, which were written after the second trip to Europe with N. Kostomarov, appeared on the magazine's pages.

At the same time, Kulisch wrote his first volume of poetry “Dosvitki. Dumy i poemy ”, which was published in Saint Petersburg in 1862 - shortly before the notorious“ Valuevskij cirkuljar ”was published - a prescription from the Interior Minister of the Russian Empire, Pyotr Alexandrovich Valujew , which forbade the publication of the works in Ukrainian Has. Despite the prescription, Kulisch's fame reached Galicia , where the magazines “Večernyci” and “Meta” from Lemberg already published his prose, poems and articles. "Kulisch was the" main engine "of the Ukrainophile movement in Galicia in the 1860s and up to the half of the 1870s" - wrote Ivan Franko , who noted his work in the popular magazine "Pravda" in particular.

Activity abroad

Four years of stay in Warsaw and material prosperity (in this city he had an office of the Director of Intellectual Affairs) gave the writer the opportunity to gain a great deal of experience and knowledge (such as work in a state agency, archival research and friendship with the Polish Intelligentsia and Galicia-Ukrainians, especially in Lviv , where he often came).

An emotional and active person who clings to his “mature” ideas, Kulisch diligently and purposefully collected material to justify the concept about the negative impact of the Cossack and peasant uprisings on the development of the Ukrainian statehood and culture. During his work in Warsaw from 1864 to 1868, in Vienna from 1871 and in Saint Petersburg from 1873 on the position of editor of “Žurnal Ministerstva putej soobščenija” (“Magazine of the Office for Transport Routes”), he carried out three-volume research on the “History of Reunification of Rus´ ”, in which he documented the idea of ​​the historical damage caused by the liberation movements of the 17th century and praised the cultural mission of the Polish“ Šljacht ”, the Ukrainian nobles and the Russian empire in the history of Ukraine .

Last years

The publication of this work has “pushed away” almost all of P. Kulisch's old “ukrainophile” friends. Even he was later disappointed with his Moscow position. The reason for this was the Ems Decree of 1876, according to which it was forbidden to publish texts in the Little Russian dialect , with the exception of works of art and historical documents; in addition, the performances of plays, readings and teaching of all kinds in this language were banned. P. Kulisch settled on the Motronovka farm. Since he ran his own household and wrote or put together the volume “Chutorskaja filosofija i udalennaja ot sveta poezija” (“Farm philosophy and poetry removed from the light”) from his Russian-language articles and Ukrainian works of art, which was published in It was banned and taken off the market in 1879 because of censorship .

At the end of his life, P. Kulisch showed an interest in Muslim culture and in the ethics of Islam - the poem “Magomet i Chadiza” from 1883 or a drama in poems “Bajda, knjaz´Vyšnevezkyj” from 1884 serve as examples.

Kulisch translated a lot, especially Shakespeare , Goethe , Byron , he prepared his third volume of poetry "Dzvin" for publication in Geneva , finished his historiographical work in three volumes "Otpadenie Malorossii ot Pol´ši" ("Separation of Little Russia from Poland "), was in correspondence with many correspondents , gave lectures on the topic of conflicts between the Slavic peoples - especially in connection with the chauvinistic actions of the Polish "Šljacht" in eastern Galicia to the Ukrainian population.

Kulisch died on February 14, 1897 in his Motronovka farm.

Create

Roman Černaja rada

The historical novel Černaja rada, chronika 1663 goda was first published in Russkaja beseda magazine in 1857. In the same year a second publication came in a separate edition. The novel is devoted to the struggle for the hetman title after the death of B.Chmelnitsky . In the epilogue, Kulisch wrote that he wanted the following:

"... to prove to every vacillating mind, not by a dissertation, but by an artistic rendering of the forgotten and distorted past in our imaginations that the merging of the North and South Russian tribes is morally necessary"

- About the relationship between Little Russian and common Russian literature : epilogue to the novel Černaja rada

According to Ivan Franko , Černaja rada is “the best historical tale in our literature”.

Other works

• Humorous stories:
  • "Cygan", "Pan Murlo", "Malorosijs´ki anekdoty"
• Stories on the theme of unhappy love:
  • "Gordovita para", "Divoče serce"
• Historical stories:
  • "Martin Gak", "Brati", "Sičovi gosti"
• Roman Michajlo Čarnyšenko, abo Malorosija 80 lit nazad
• Romantic-idyllic story Orisja
• During Kulisch's lifetime three collections of poems were written in the Ukrainian language : Dosvitky 1862, Chutirna poezija 1882, Dzvin 1892. In addition, in 1897 there was a volume Pozyčena kobza with translations by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Heinrich Heine , Friedrich Schiller and George Gordon Byron .

In the Pered rassvetom ( Before Sunrise ) collection, Kulisch continued the style of the early romantic works of T. Ševčenko , with good prospects for the role of his successor. Later collections reflect the changes in the worldview of the author who brought the technique of Western European pre-romantic and romantic poetry into Ukrainian literature.

Historical works

• Zapiski o južnoj Rusi. ( Notes on Southern Russia ) Saint Petersburg 1856. Volume 1-2
• Istorija vozsoedinenija Rusi ( History of the Reunification of Rus´ ) Saint Petersburg 1874.
• Materialy dlja istorii vossoedinenija Rusi ( Material for the history of the reunification of Rus´ ) Moscow 1877.
• Otpadenie Malorossiy ot Pol´ši ( Separation of Little Russia from Poland ) Moscow 1888.
• Vladimirija ili iskra ljubvi ( Vladimirija or Spark of Love ) Artek 1998.

Web links

Commons : Pantelejmon Kulisch  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Article in the Britannica
• Biography from Kulish in Ukrainian
• Electronic library in Ukrainian
• Audio library in Ukrainian

literature

• George SN Luckyj: Panteleimon Kulish: A Sketch of his Life and Times. Columbia Univ. Press, New York 1983, ISBN 0-88033-016-3 .
• D. Doroshenko: Pantelejmon Kuliš. Kiev / Leipzig 1920.
• Helene Auzinger and others (arr.): Small Slavic biography . Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1958, DNB 947654682 , p. 354 f.
• Kerstin S. Jobst : History of Ukraine. Reclam, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-15-018729-6 , pp. 100 and 118.
• Andrii Danylenko: From the Bible to Shakespeare. Pantelejmon Kuliš (1819-1897) and the formation of literary Ukrainian. Academic Studies Press, Boston 2016, ISBN 978-1-61811-470-9 .