FOLKLORE SOURCES OF IVAN FRANKO’S SHORT STORY “THE HUTSUL KING”

Abstract

The article analyzes Ivan Franko’s short story «The Hutsul King». It is established that this unfinished work is based on the oral lore samples recorded by the author in 1898 during his extended stay in the village of Dovhopole in the Hutsul region. The folklorism of this specimen of short prose manifests itself both on the semantic level (the processing of a popular folk plot about the bloodthirsty «Usteriky mandator» Karl Herdlichka) and on the formal level (the preservation of features of the traditional folk narrative style). In presenting the story of a cruel imperial official who, acting under the pretext of fighting numerous gangs of «highwaymen» (opryshky), for more than a quarter of a century terrorized the Hutsuls with his detachments of armed «gunners», Ivan Franko employed the so-called framed narrative. This type of storytelling is characterized by the «envelopment» of the main story within an additional one that functions as a prologue and an epilogue. As the opening and closing chords, the writer used a tale about a sleepless night caused by severe toothache and a subsequent encounter with folk masters of dental treatment, the Osvitsinsky father and son. The elderly Hutsul Andriy Osvitsinsky, who for some time served as the headman of Dovhopole, possessed extensive life experience and was an exceptionally engaging storyteller. At first, he shared his knowledge about dealing with the capricious nature of teeth (incidentally hinting at his familiarity with incantations against toothache), and later, prompted by the grateful patient (the aching tooth having been removed quickly and painlessly), he turned to recollections of bygone times, focusing on the story of the rise and fall of the mandator Karl Herdlichka. The dominant plot line, revealing the criminal rule of the official and his sudden downfall (he ended his days in poverty, abandoned by everyone) caused by his fourth, young and treacherous wife, is interspersed with other well-known motifs of oral tradition. In particular, the narrative touches upon the characteristic features of the opryshky movement in the first half of the nineteenth century, the traditional occupations of the Hutsuls, the reverberation of the revolutionary events of 1848–1849, and the activities of renowned Lukian Kobylytsia in the Cheremosh Valley. It is emphasized that, despite its deep rootedness in folklore, «The Hutsul King» distinctly bears the «imprint of spirit» of the unsurpassed master of the word Ivan Franko.