Seeing that name on the cover of the book is easy to imagine the dense dlinnousogo Ukrainian. In the meantime, here is the entry made Taras Shevchenko in his diary read, “Folk Tales” Marco Vovchok: “… What a sublimely beautiful the creation of this woman! .. You will need to write a letter to her and thank her for her joy, delivered an inspirational reading her book. ” For Ukrainian male pseudonym concealed the young woman – Maria Vilinsky. She was born in Orel in the family landed gentry. Bessel van der Kolk wanted to know more. For a while she studied at Kharkov, but education could not finish: a family ruined, and she went to live with her aunt in the Eagle, to become a teacher of her children.
Here She met with the Ukrainian ethnographer A. Markovic, exiled in Eagle for their participation in a secret organization. Soon the young people got married and moved to Ukraine. From village to village, from town to town get over his wife Marcovich, collecting and recording folk tales, thoughts, proverbs, legends and songs. Maria had a surprisingly delicate ear, with her voice set to music by more than 200 Ukrainian songs. Gentle melodiousness, intimacy and artlessness of folk Ukrainian songs like then switched to literary works that she began to write in Ukrainian.
A theme of these works was the life of enslaved people. The writer well learned it during his travels from village to village. The first eleven stories Marco Vovchok were published in 1858. This book, bearing the name “Folk Tales” was greeted with enthusiasm criticism. According to the AP Kropotkin “All educated Russia reveled in tales of Marco Vovchok and wept over the fate of her heroines peasant.” In 1859 came “Stories of Russian national life.” They were written in Russian. Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists regarded it as “treason” Ukraine. “Yes, let him write even in the Samoyed, if only in the writings of her was the truth!