Literary Signature
Stefanyk's whole literary output consisted of 59 published novellas, most of them no longer than a couple of pages. In them he showed himself a master of a species of the short story genre, the Stefanyk novella, which is characterized by a succinct and highly dramatic form used to capture single crucial moments in the life of a hero. The dramatic quality of the novellas ensured their being successfully staged as plays by Volodymyr Blavatsky and adapted for film (Kaminnyi khrest, screenplay by Ivan Drach). The heroes of Stefanyk's stories are for the most part peasants from his native Pokuttia. Against the general background of poverty or war (in the later stories) Stefanyk showed his heroes in a universal dilemma, confronting the pain at the heart of existence. Stefanyk concentrated on capturing the turbulence of the soul, the inner agony, which revealed the psychological complexity of the hero. His characterizations were achieved through the speech of the characters. Words spoken became important not only for their meaning, but also for the elements of a story, which throws direct light on the character's emotional state, personality, social position, and degree of literacy. The special blend of the literary Ukrainian and the Pokuttian dialect created a flavor not easily duplicated or translated. Nevertheless there have been several attempts to translate Stefanyk into Polish, German, and Russian. The French translation La croix de pierre et autres nouvelles appeared in 1975, and the following English translations have appeared: The Stone Cross (1971), Maple Leaves and Other Stories (1988), and some individual stories in anthologies.
Read more about this topic: Vasyl Stefanyk
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