Maria: A Chronicle of a Life
AuthorUlas Samchuk
Original titleМарія: хроніка одного життя : роман
TranslatorRoma Franko
Genrehistorical novel
Publication date
1934
Published in English
2011
ISBN978-0-9877750-0-9 English translation

Maria (Ukrainian: Марія) is a 1934 historical novel by the Ukrainian author Ulas Samchuk, who later became a member of one of the ultranationalist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists marching groups, and Nazi collaborator as chief editor for the pro-Nazi newspaper Volyn.[1][2]

The novel, dedicated "to the mothers who died of hunger in Ukraine in 1932–33", follows the life of a village woman, Maria, between the 1861 emancipation of serfs to the 1932–33 Holodomor.[3] Maria, the first work of fiction to treat the Ukrainian famine, has been included in post-1991 Ukrainian school curricula.[4]

The book is organised into three parts: A Book about the Birth of Maria, A Book of Maria's Days, and A Book about Bread.[3] Orphaned at the age of six, Maria is illiterate and forced into work when young. Her first three children die of infectious disease. Her son Maksym, before his murder by his father, is a poor farmer who evicts his parents, denounces his brother, and watches his sister starve. Maksym "combines many features of the Holodomor perpetrator: a quisling, communist, profiteer, sadist and Russian-speaking".[4] Behind Maksym, as the 'Other' bearing ultimate responsibility for the famine, lies the Soviet state centered in Moscow. "Our country has not known such a Tsar-like plundering", exclaims one tortured character.[4]

English translation

  • Samchuk, Ulas (2011). Cipwynk, Paul (ed.). Maria: A Chronicle of a Life. Translated by Franko, Roma. Language Lanterns Publications Inc. ISBN 978-0-9877750-0-9.

References

  1. ↑ noah (2021-01-27). "Nazi collaborator monuments around the world". The Forward. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
  2. ↑ "Ukrainian communists warn Kiev planning a year of glorifying nazis". Morning Star. 2020-03-03. Retrieved 2022-10-06.
  3. 1 2 Samchuk, Ulas (2011). "Introduction". In Cipwynk, Paul (ed.). Maria: A Chronicle of a Life. Translated by Franko, Roma. Language Lanterns Publications Inc. ISBN 978-0-9877750-0-9.
  4. 1 2 3 Mattingly, Daria (2020). "Idle, Drunk, and Good For Nothing: Cultural Memory of the Rank and File Perpetrators of the 1932–33 Famine in Ukraine". In Wylegała, Anna; Głowacka-Grajper, Małgorzata (eds.). The Burden of the Past: History, Memory, and Identity in Contemporary Ukraine. Indiana University Press. pp. 38–9. ISBN 978-0-253-04673-4.
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