NOTE BY TRANSLATOR
The Songs, alas! must lack their native music; of the land which evoked them Mr. Paul Crath has written with a poet’s pen. It remains for me just to say a few words about the people who sing the songs and (with one digression) I will quote a few extracts from French and Ukrainian essayists:—
“The Ukrainian is a race purely Slav, gay, chivalrous, made thoughtful by its own steppes—a race of poets, musicians, artists who have fixed for all time their national history in the songs of the people which no centuries of oppression could silence. The singers—the Kobzars—accompany themselves on the kobza while they sing the glories of the Ukraine. All art with them is national, from the building of their tiny huts to the embroideries which adorn their clothes and which are distinguished for their originality all over the East.”
“Here is a people, one of the most numerous of Europe and nevertheless one of the least known. They have not even an assured name. They are called Little Russians to distinguish them from the mass of the Russian people—they are called Ukrainian because they inhabit the frontier between Poland and Russia; one of the branches (in Austrian Galicia) bears the name of Ruthenian.... In the nineteenth century this oppressed people revealed to the world the puissance ofits artistic gifts. The Ukrainians became the first singers of Europe; the celebrated Russian music is the music of the Ukraine, and it is an Ukrainian, Gogol, who has opened the way to the Russian romancers of genius.”—Charles Seignobos, Professor at the Sorbonne.
“In the Russian Ukraine the nobles, descendants of the line of the Cossacks, and the clergy had closely guarded the remembrance of the grandeur, the glory, and the independence of the Ukraine. Living in contact with a people which had preserved its language, songs, and customs, they turned to it to know it better.... Collections of popular songs by Maximovich, Dragomanov, Shesnevsky, Zerteleff, etc., began to be made around 1820 and in the second half of the nineteenth century. Soon romantic poets found this field—Kvitka outstripped George Sand and Auerbach.... Towards 1840 the great poet Shevchenko (1814–1861) combined by his genius all that was most profound in universal poetry with the genre of the popular poetry of the Ukraine. A great poet and a great citizen, his name is sacred to all Ukrainians.”
Mrs. E. L. Voynich has published six lyrics from the mass of this poet’s work, all of which is practically unknown to English readers. Many of his writings, however, are to be included in the “Slavonic Classics” now under way.
Immigrants, self-exiled, still sing, putting trivial incidents or dreadful affrays, happenings in their old villages, into legend and song. From several of theseliving in Winnipeg I obtained old ballads and folk-songs set to minor airs. Russalka on ironing days was a concert in herself! I remember how she told me the song made by a local poet in her old home when a faithless bride was murdered by her conscript lover. Anastasia could not wait three years—but the soldier came to her wedding.
This is the song:—
“From the other side of the hillA stormy wind is blowing.Would that I knew what my sweetheart is doing!O my love, dost thou wish now to be mine?”
“From the other side of the hillA stormy wind is blowing.Would that I knew what my sweetheart is doing!O my love, dost thou wish now to be mine?”
“From the other side of the hillA stormy wind is blowing.Would that I knew what my sweetheart is doing!O my love, dost thou wish now to be mine?”
“From the other side of the hill
A stormy wind is blowing.
Would that I knew what my sweetheart is doing!
O my love, dost thou wish now to be mine?”
“Come then—for we may marry some day. But first of all thou must bring me next Sunday some flowers of Trezilie” (poisonous herb).
“I have a saddle horse in my stable—surely I will mount and ride to get the flowers. Very hard are they to get, very long is the way to the forest where they grow—yet shall I ride swiftly and get them for my love.”
“I went to the forest and found the Zilie between two elm trees. I dismounted and began to dig. Zuzula flew near and sang: ‘Spare your pains, young soldier, dig no more. Your sweetheart is fooling you, she weds another to-day.’
“Then I rode in haste till I reached the courtyard of her home. Her friends came to meet me, put my horse in the stable, gave me to eat and drink, invited me to the wedding dance.
“I did not come down to dance and drink. I came down to say two words only to my sweetheart....With my right hand I took the hand of the bride; with my left I took my revolver and shot her.”
So his sweetheart fell between her dorohynki (bridesmaids), as a star pales between two sunrise clouds.
Some of the poems included in this volume have appeared inPoet Lore(Boston);Poetry(Chicago);The Craftsman(New York);Everyman(Edinburgh);Canada Monthly(London, Ontario);University Magazine(Montreal). To the publishers of these magazines my thanks are due for permission to reproduce the poems in question. I would like to acknowledge gratefully the help given me in translation by MM. Paul Crath, Ivan Petrushevich, and A. Malofie.
FLORENCE RANDAL LIVESAY.
FLORENCE RANDAL LIVESAY.
FLORENCE RANDAL LIVESAY.
FLORENCE RANDAL LIVESAY.
Winnipeg,September 1916.
Winnipeg,September 1916.
Winnipeg,September 1916.
Winnipeg,
September 1916.