Ol’ha Kobylains’ka’s Reception and Radical Revisions of Russian Radicals: The Case of Dmitrii Pisarev

• In Event: Russian Radicals in Ukraine, Russian Radicals on Ukraine: Reception and Exchange

Abstract

Ol’ha Kobylians’ka, one of Ukraine’s foremost prose writers who is often regarded as a founder of Ukrainian Modernism, was inspired by the Russian radical idea of the writer’s exceptional role as a public figure, whose duty was to accept full moral responsibility for leading the people. In this paper, I will discuss Kobylains’ka’s reception of Dmitry Pisarev’s renowned pamphlet “Pchioly” (“Bees,” 1862), in which Russia’s materialist philosopher criticized mid-century Russia through a satirical investigation of the division of labour in a beehive. Kobylains’ka makes an intertextual reference to Pisarev’s pamphlet in her first major published work Liudyna (A Human Being, 1885-1894) and uses its key ideas to criticize the popular at the time the socialist ideal of self-sufficient emancipationist.

Author

• Yuliya V. Ladygina, Pennsylvania State U