Textual history of apiary scene from Panteleimon Kulish’s novel “Chorna Rada”

Abstract

The paper deals with the textual history of the scene in the apiary (Chapter 2) of Kulish’s novel “Chorna Rada: Khronika 1663 Roku” (“The Black Council: A Chronicle of the Year 1663”). Throughout the 14 years, from 1843 (when a creative vision of the novel arose) to 1857 (when both Ukrainian and Russian versions of “Chorna rada” were published), the text of the novel remarkably changed. In the analyzed scene, the most significant changes were made in the characteristics of the ‘ideological person’ Bozhyi Cholovik (Man of God). This character was transformed when the author just began writing both versions of “Chorna Rada”. In the original Russian text (1845), he was portrayed as an ancient-like old man and a strongly built Cossack-philosopher, while in the Ukrainian text (1846), he appeared as a blind blessed elder with prophetic vision, detached from ‘vanity of vanities’. Also, in the original text of both versions of the scene in the apiary, characters Mykhailo Cherevan and Vasylii Nevolnyk (Slave) were more detailed than in the final published text. In particular, in both early texts, the author tells a story of how Vasylii Nevolnyk broke free from slavery in Turkey. As a result of all changes in the text, the analyzed scene became more expressive in artistic terms, and characters — more holistic. The comparison of the two versions leads to the conclusion that they are textually interrelated, though significantly different, being translations of each other and at the same time the original works. The researcher extensively quotes the fragments not included in the published text of “Chorna Rada”. A part of the lost text from the original Ukrainian version is being reconstructed based on the original Russian version of the novel.