Kovalchuk Volodymyr.Dramatizations of Selected Works by Taras Shevchenko.Lviv, 1936

“For such a production, very conscientious preparation is needed; one must reflect on every word the poet spoke in his work…”

Volodymyr Kovalchuk. Productions of selected works by Taras Shevchenko: with 15 stage layouts and 6 songs in musical notation.

Lviv: published by the “Prosvita” Society, 1936. — (Publication of the “Prosvita” Society; issue 822 (3–4): year 1936, issues 3–4, March–April).

In an illustrated paper publisher’s cover: a portrait of Taras Shevchenko in profile in the style of a woodcut, the author’s name, title, and publication details, each in a separate frame. On the back cover is an invitation to subscribe to the Prosvita journal “Life and Knowledge” for 1936. The booklet is fastened with two metal staples. The cover is worn and soiled, with foxing; along the spine and edges, there is paper loss, tears, and fraying; the lower right corner of the front cover is creased. The paper shows natural yellowing, and the corner of one sheet is folded. Pencil marks appear on the margin of the preface and on the back cover. On the title page is an ink dedication: “To my good friend and fellow poet Ihor Kalynets, in memory, from Roman F. Lviv, February 1988.” Condition: satisfactory.

The book has historical and cultural value as a memorial of the amateur Prosvita theater of interwar Galicia, and the 1988 dedication, likely addressed to the 1960s poet Ihor Kalynets, gives the copy collectible interest.

INFORMATION

A ready-made script for a Shevchenko celebration for a rural reading group: Volodymyr Kovalchuk translated selected works by the Kobzar into the language of the stage and added 15 layouts for performers and 6 songs in musical notation. In the preface, the author explains why such productions often fail to achieve their goal: amateurs lack a model and an understanding of the work, and “goodwill and enthusiasm” alone cannot save the matter. Notes at the end explain obsolete and dialectal words from the poems “My thirteenth year has passed,” “We once grew up together,” and from Shevchenko’s retelling of “The Lament of Yaroslava,” as well as from “The Rifleman’s Glory in Songs” (1939), which he prepared together with Yuriy Shkrumeľak.

The writer Olha Dutschymynska, responding to the book’s publication in the journal “Women’s Fate” (1936, issues 7–8), called it an invaluable aid in organizing Shevchenko celebrations.

Volodymyr Kovalchuk (died in the early 1940s) was a Lviv writer and playwright who also published under the pseudonyms Y. Kalyniv and V. Tesar. In 1931–1933, he belonged to the “Nedija” group at Oleks Novakovskyi’s Art School and to the “Twelve,” the youngest Lviv literary bohemia of the 1930s. Author of the novella about Oleks Dovbush “The Ruler of the Blue Land” and the poem “The Feast in Berdychiv.” For “Prosvita,” he prepared a whole series of stage guides: productions of works by Shevchenko (1936), Franko (1937), and Lesya Ukrainka (1938), the stage pictures “Rusalka” for the centenary of “Rusalka of the Dniester,” and also “The Rifleman’s Glory in Songs” (1939) together with Yuriy Shkrumeľak.

The book was published as a double issue for March–April 1936, issue 822 in the subscription series of publications by the “Prosvita” Society. In 1988, it was given as a gift by “Roman F.” — most likely to the poet Ihor Kalynets (1939–2025), a former political prisoner who lived and worked in Lviv after returning from exile in 1981.