Who Wrote the First Ukrainian Book About Odesa: The Trail Leads to Kvitka-Osnov'yanenko

There are many chapters in the history of Odesa linked to the development of Ukrainian culture. One of them is the appearance in 1834 of the first Ukrainian-language book printed in the city—the poem “Marusya: A Fairy Tale.” This fact is usually mentioned in in-depth studies of the city’s history, as it demonstrates that the Ukrainian language had a place in Odesa’s cultural life as early as the beginning of the 19th century.

However, there is an important nuance here: we are talking specifically about the first Ukrainian book printed in Odesa, not the first work written here in the Ukrainian language. A few years earlier, Mykola Venger had written the novella “Mykola Koval” in Odesa. Despite reports that it was published in our city, the book was actually published in 1832 in Mykolaiv. As Odessa local historian Hryhorii Zlenko noted, the Odessa municipal printing house, for some reason, ignored the opportunity to publish the first Ukrainian book in the south.

The story of *Marusya: Tales* has another intriguing aspect: it was published without the author’s name. So it’s only natural that researchers later began searching for an answer to the question of who actually wrote this work.

Literary scholar Andrii Muzychka was the first to tackle this mystery. In a 1927 article, he hypothesized that the author of the poem might have been the ethnographer and folklorist Platon Lukashevich (1809–1887). The researcher noted the similarity between the phonetic spelling in “Marusya: Tales” and that in Lukashevich’s publication “Little Russian and Red Russian Folk Dumas and Songs,” which was published in 1836. Lukashevich’s ties to Odesa served as an additional argument.

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Andriy Muzychka. PHOTO: Facebook page of the Marko Cheremshyna Museum in Sniatyn

This candidate did indeed have ties to our city: he studied at the Richelieu Lyceum and later gained fame as a collector of Ukrainian folklore. In particular, he managed to discover the most complete version of the folk duma about Samuil Kishka.

Andriy Muzychka’s hypothesis was generally supported by Odesa-based local historian Vasyl Zagoruyko. We were unable to find any other well-founded theories regarding the authorship of *Marusya: Tales* in the literature we reviewed.

However, the theory regarding Platon Lukashevich’s authorship raises a number of questions. First and foremost, Andriy Muzychka himself acknowledged that he was unable to work directly with Lukashevich’s collection *Little Russian and Red Russian Folk Dumas and Songs* (1836), but relied solely on a photographic reproduction of a few lines. Today, both editions are available in digitized form, so they can be compared. In our view, the phonetic spelling of these texts does not show such a clear similarity as to be considered a convincing argument in favor of Lukashevich’s authorship. The final conclusion, of course, must be made by professional linguists.

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Platon Lukashevych. SOURCE: Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine

There are other circumstances that cast doubt on Platon Lukashevich’s involvement in writing the poem. He graduated from the Richelieu Lyceum in 1828, after which, according to biographical information, he left Odesa. Moreover, Lukashevich was originally from the Poltava region and spent most of his life there. In contrast, the author of “Marusya” was very familiar with the Slobozhanshchyna region, chose it as the setting for the events in the work, and was well acquainted with the plot of Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnov’yanenko’s novella “Marusya.”

The artistic style of the anonymous author of “Marusya: A Fairy Tale” is particularly noteworthy. His poetic language is characterized by subtle humor, self-irony, and a playful, effortless use of language. In particular, the author assesses his own poetic abilities with a smile:

“For I, you see, do not climb Mount Parnassus,

I’m not afraid of falling from there,

And there’s nowhere to push me off.

My Parnassus is a cold mountain,

And falling from it isn’t scary,

It’s low and not steep…”

The geographical details of the poem are also telling. The text mentions not only Kharkiv and Okhtyrka, but also Valkiv Forest—the place where the main character goes for a walk with her friend. This is where the story begins:

“Once in Petrivka, two beautiful, fair-skinned girls

Went early to Valkiv Forest to look for wild strawberries…”

According to research by historian Volodymyr Zagorovskyi, Valkiv Forest was located roughly within or near the boundaries of the modern “Gomilshanski Forests” National Nature Park in the Kharkiv region. Such a specific geographical detail attests to the author’s thorough familiarity with Slobozhanshchyna and suggests that he either came from this region or had close ties to it.

Even more intriguing is the author’s familiarity with the plot of Kvitka-Osnov’yanenko’s novella of the same name. It was also published in 1834, whereas the Odessa-based “Marusya” had been approved for publication by the censors as early as December 23, 1833. Thus, the author of the Odessa poem could have been familiar with Kvitka-Osnovyanenko’s work even before its official publication. This leads to a rather unexpected hypothesis: could the author of the Odessa poem have been Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovyanenko himself or someone from his inner circle?

This theory is further supported by the fact that Kvitka-Osnovyanenko had experience writing poetry. According to bibliographer Vadym Tarnavsky, his short poems were published in collections from 1816, 1817, 1818, and 1833. However, only the poem “Shpykachky” (1833) was written in Ukrainian.

An important clue can also be found in the dedication of the Odessa poem to Petro Gulak-Artemovsky, signed with the words “To Mr. P. P. Ar. – G-ka.” It begins with a humorous address:

“Have mercy on me, sir!

Please—don’t be too angry!

I am no match for you

And I feel the weight of my sins…”

The author then mentions characters from Gulak-Artemovsky’s works: the dog Ryabko from the fable “The Master and the Dog” (1818), Mr. Tvardovsky from the ballad of the same name (1827), and the fisherman from another of his ballads from the same year. The anonymous poet admits that he has “read all these works a hundred times already.” The dedication concludes once again with a playful appeal to the recipient:

“You’re the only one I’m afraid of, uncle.

Don’t scold me, don’t scold this poor soul!

I beg you, I implore you!...

I’m no match for you

And I feel the weight of my sin…”

Beneath the outward respectfulness, a completely relaxed, almost familiar tone can be sensed here. This circumstance takes on special significance when we recall the history of the creation of Kvitka-Osnov’yanenko’s prose work *Marusya*. As literary scholar Rostislav Chopyk notes, the novella served as a kind of response to the writer’s dispute with Petro Hulak-Artemovskyi. The latter allegedly doubted that it was possible to write anything serious and moving in the Ukrainian language, rather than just crude and humorous works. Kvitka-Osnov’yanenko, however, proved that the Ukrainian language is capable of evoking deep emotions.

However, there is also an argument that prevents us from confidently attributing the poem to Kvitka-Osnov’yanenko himself. The anonymous author refers to Gulak-Artemovsky as “uncle,” even though Kvitka-Osnov’yanenko was older than him. Therefore, the theory that the Kharkiv writer authored the poem remains merely a hypothesis. It is also possible that someone from his inner circle was involved in the poem’s creation. It is up to experts to definitively solve this literary mystery.

But the search for a possible author is only part of the story. It is no less interesting to find out who might have facilitated the publication of a Ukrainian-language book in Odesa in 1834.

Among those directly involved in the publication, the censor Mykola Kurlyantsev (1802–1835) deserves special mention. He was a professor of physics and mathematics at the Richelieu Lyceum and the author of scholarly works and translations in physics, mathematics, and philosophy. His contemporaries described his views as progressive.

Special attention should be given to the residents of Odessa who had close cultural ties with Slobozhanshchyna, particularly graduates of Kharkiv University. In the first half of the 19th century, there were quite a few such people in the city. This was facilitated by administrative and educational circumstances: until 1830, Odessa was part of the Kharkiv educational district. Cultural contacts between the two cities were quite intense.

One of the most prominent figures in the Kharkiv cultural milieu in Odessa at the time of *Marusya*’s publication was the city mayor, Oleksiy Lyovshin (1798–1879). Despite his relatively young age, he already had a reputation as a writer. In particular, his *Letters from Little Russia* stood out for their favorable attitude toward Ukrainian culture and, at the time, caught the attention of Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnov’yanenko.

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Oleksiy Lyovshin. SOURCE: www.niez.com.ua

It appears that Levshin maintained ties with Kharkiv’s scientific and cultural figures thereafter. A letter from the philologist Izmail Sreznevsky to the mayor of Odessa in 1833 is particularly telling. In it, Sreznevsky referred to Levshin as a Ukrainian and asked him to support a subscription to the well-known collection *Zaporizhian Antiquities*. “You, as … a man of letters, as a patron of science and literature, and as a Ukrainian, may perhaps deign to bestow even a modicum of attention upon my work,” he wrote.

In light of this, it is quite possible that the appearance of the Ukrainian-language “Marusya” in Odesa precisely during Lyovshin’s tenure as city governor (1831–1837) was no coincidence. At the very least, this fact should be considered within the broader context of cultural exchange between Odesa and Kharkiv.

Thus, the question of the author of *Marusya: Fairy Tales*—the first Ukrainian-language book printed in Odessa—remains open. The theory regarding Platon Lukashevych is not without its doubts, and the hypothesis of a possible involvement by Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnov’yanenko or someone from his circle requires a more thorough literary analysis. Perhaps further study of the text, its language, and the cultural context in which it appeared will finally help establish the author’s name. After all, behind this small book, printed in Odesa nearly two centuries ago, lies a much larger story—one about the Ukrainian language, cultural connections, and the people who helped establish it in this southern city.

https://odnb.odessa.ua/rarities/item/10?lang=uk# – the digitized edition of *Marusya: Fairy Tales* is available for viewing in the digital collection of the Odesa National Scientific Library. 

This article is based on the scholarly publication “On the Issue of Authorship and Those Involved in the Publication of the First Ukrainian Book in Odesa, ‘Marusya. Fairy Tale" in 1834," published in 2019 and authored by Professor Taras Goncharuk and Ksenia Sorokina. The original article can be found at: https://chm.onu.edu.ua/article/view/187102/221300 
 

Ксенія Сорокіна