Detachable Subdivision
"Rivne Professional College of
National University of Life
and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine"
The word of Panas Myrnyi –
this is a word of devotion
to the people and the Motherland.
M. Stelmakh
Panas Myrny entered the history of Ukrainian literature as the author of realistic psychological prose. Panas Myrny (the literary pseudonym of Panas Yakovych Rudchenko) was born on May 13, 1849 in Myrhorod into the family of a petty official. In 1862, he graduated from the Hadyach County School. At the age of fourteen, he entered the civil service. He served in offices in Hadyach, Pryluky, and Myrhorod. From 1871, he lived in Poltava, working first as an accountant in the provincial treasury, and later in various positions in the treasury chamber. In 1914, Panas Rudchenko received the rank of full state councilor. After 1917, he worked in the Poltava provincial financial department.
A classic of Ukrainian literature, he was one of the few writers who managed to realize himself in literature and at the same time build a brilliant career in government. After the February Revolution of 1917, Panas Myrnyi supported the Central Rada and was an ardent admirer of Symon Petliura.
Panas Myrnyi was the first to bring Ukrainian literature onto new “rails” of epic prose, revealing the images of the invisible “little man” close to him in spirit – Ukrainian nobles and officials, landowners, intellectual-grocer, merchants, and peasants.
Achievements of Panas Myrnyi
The literary heritage of Panas Myrny is unique for its time works that have not lost their relevance today. In them, as the highest artistic value, the truth of life was reflected, reality was shown as it was. And since Myrny sought not only to convey pictures of what is happening, but also to explore the human soul in various life situations, on the basis of the realistic method of depiction, certain, in many respects new social types appeared in Ukrainian literature.
Panas Myrnyi's merit is the creation of vivid human personalities, the display of deep psychological processes, and the natural development of characters contrary to the widespread stereotypical behavior models of representatives of a particular class.
Panas Myrny also created new themes in Ukrainian literature. Thus, in his first story "The Drunkard" (1874), he told about the tragic fate of a petty official from a peasant background. In addition to studying the psychology of the character, Myrny for the first time poses the problem of the adaptation of a simple decent person from the village to the city.
In the story “Vile People,” Panas Myrny introduces a new image of the intellectual-miscellaneous for the first time in Ukrainian literature. Critics unequivocally say: this work of the writer is ahead of Myrny’s literary era.
The traditional theme of the relationship between the peasantry and the nobility is revealed in a new way by the writer in the stories "Beyond Water", "Hungry Will", "The Ancient and Modern Disaster".
The pinnacle of Panas Myrny's epic mastery is considered to be the novels "Do the Oxen Roar, When the Manger is Full?" and "The Whore," where, using the example of extraordinary people, the author traces the changes in the psychological state of the characters in different life circumstances. For Ukrainian literature, these works were truly a discovery, in many ways ahead of the era in which the author himself lived.
In addition to prose, Panas Myrny created a number of dramatic works, one of which - "Limerivna" was staged. He made an original retelling of "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" - "The Thought on Igor's Campaign". He also wrote about 300 poems.
The writer died on January 28, 1920, and was buried in Poltava. A memorial museum has now been created in the house where he lived. The writer became widely known after his death.
To the 175th anniversary of the birth of Panas Myrnyi, Ukrainian prose writer, playwright, poet, folklorist, translator, publicist, public and cultural figure, prepared in the library and information center book exhibition "Epic Genius of Ukrainian Literature".
Galyna PETRENKO,
Lead Librarian of the BIC
