TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
291 Words
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
Ostap Vyshnia (1889-1956) was born in Hrun, Poltava Province, Ukraine. He was educated at the Kyiv Military Medical Assistants School, but his literary career soon took over and in 1919, at the ‘mature’ age of thirty, he began writing and dedicated his life to journalism and satire.
Arrested in 1933 as an ‘enemy of the Soviet people,’ he was released from the labour camps ten years later during World War II. Upon his release from the camp, he wrote mainly apolitical stories about hunting and fishing, his favourite pastimes.
The large editions of his books in the 1920s and his daily columns in many newspapers meant that Ostap Vyshnia was very well off materially. However, he directed a large percentage of his income to those who most needed it – poor villagers, widows, and those in financial difficulties. Students turned to him as if he were their own father. For several years, he maintained a boarding house for ten medical students in Poltava.
Because of his great popularity and the respect he commanded, Ostap Vyshnia was able to influence the outcomes of court cases against organisations and individuals. Every day, he received hundreds of letters with requests for help, with grievances against bureaucrats – and Ostap Vyshnia reacted immediately with daily feuilletons and letters to the highest authorities.
His works are notorious for their colourful language, being liberally sprinkled with slang and dialectical words, which he constantly recorded while extensively travelling the country. Vyshnia fervently believed that writers needed to write as the people spoke.
My thanks to Serhiy Halchenko for verifying dates of first publication of the works included here and encouraging me to expand and revise this second edition. Footnotes have been added to give greater insight into events, people, etc. of the time.
Yuri Tkacz
- Writer
