But... The Lord is Silent: Selected Prose Fiction by Olha Kobylianska and Yevheniya Yaroshynska (Women's Voices in Ukrainian Literature Vol. III)

by Yevheniya Yaroshynska, Roma Franko, Olha Kobylianska

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0968389929
• ISBN13: 9780968389928
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Language Lanterns Publications
• Length: 470 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.5" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 12 years and up

Customer Reviews

Not a book about religion, but must-read prose fiction showcased in Volume III of the Women's Voices

Although the title might suggest otherwise, this is not a book regarding religion; it is, however, the title of the last of thirty-four short stories authored by 19th century modernist Ukrainian author Olha Kobylianska (1863-1942) which is included in this volume--and, it's that short story that gives Volume III its title. Volume III of Women's Voices in Ukrainian Literature, which features the selected works of Ukrainian prose fiction in English by Olha Kobylianska (1865-1942) and Yevheniya Yaroshynska (1868-1904) includes works which "range from vignettes and sketches to novelettes and novels. Together they constitute an unsystematic but compelling social history of an era during which the mortar of social mores, religious beliefs, and gender distinctions began to crumble as successive political and ideological cataclysms wreaked havoc with time-honored personal and societal relations." Women's Voices in Ukrainian Literature has a purpose of making "accessible to English readers the selected works of Ukrainian women writers, most of whom have not been previously translated into English, and in so doing, enhance our understanding of women's slow, difficult, and ongoing trek to political, economic and social equality." Olha Kobylianska is the first author featured. She was born in the Western Ukrainian province of Bukovyna (town of Hurahumora), then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Olha was schooled in German, "the official language imposed on Bukovynians in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, her reading consisted mainly of the works of German authors and world literature translated into German." She started her literary career by writing stories and poems in German. Two major influences on Kobylianska were Nataliya Kobrynska (the leading theoretician of the women's movement in Ukraine), and Sofia Okunevska (the first female physician in Austria-Hungary). It was these women who influenced Kobylianska to write in Ukrainian, and it was through her friendship with them that she became involved in the women's movement in Ukraine, writing articles and giving speeches. Kobylianska moved to the capital of the province of Bukovyna, Chernivtsi, in 1899, where she became a close friend of Yevheniya Yaroshynska (the second author of But...The Lord is Silent), was active in Ukrainian literary circles, and had close ties with prominent Ukrainian writers such as Lesya Ukrainka, Vasyl Stefanyk, and Mykhaylo Kotsiubynsky. For further information on Ukrainian writers, please see my reviews of: A Study of Vasyl Stefanyk and also Written in the Book of Life. Although the majority of But...The Lord is Silent is comprised of Kobylianska's literature, it isn't, however, the first time that her works have appeared in English. Her short story, Nature, appeared in English translation in a book entitled Their Land, an Anthology of Ukrainian Short Stories (1964). Also, her short story, Impromptu Phantasie, and an excerpt from her novel, On Sunday Morning S