“I Also Fell Victim to War”: War in Kostiantyna Malytska’s Memoir Narrative

Abstract

The article analyses the memoir narrative (memoirs and correspondence) of the Ukrainian writer, educator, editor, and public figure Kostiantyna Malytska, which is a valuable human testimony and emotional self-description of her difficult five-year experience in Siberian exile. Malytska was the only woman among thirteen men, well-known public figures, who, in February 1915, were arrested by the Russian occupation authorities in Lviv and exiled to the Yenisei province. In her memoirs, against the background of descriptions of the military and political situation, Malytska conveys in detail her impressions of “Asia” (as she called the foreign land), the geographical environment of “disastrous Siberia”, comparing it with the toponymy of her native land, and shows the way of life of the local population of “Choldonians”. Th e memoirs touchingly describe meetings with new people, the spirit of sincere compatriotism between Ukrainian prisoners in a foreign land, the difficulty of “getting used to” Siberia, the experience of time, the activities of the Ukrainian community in Krasnoyarsk, and teaching at a local Ukrainian school. For their factual basis, Malytska’s memoirs are valuable as a vital source for understanding the writer’s life and human destiny, the historical and political situation in Galicia during the period of Russian occupation, and for highlighting the cultural and patriotic life of wartime Lviv and the fate of its prominent public figures who were also persecuted, arrested, and exiled.