JENS PETER JAKOBSEN'S NOVELLA “MOGENS” TRANSLATED BY OLHA KOBYLIANSKA: TEXT AND CONTEXTS

Abstract

The problem of Olha Kobylianska’s interrelationship with European literature has been in the field of researchers’ vision since the Ukrainian author’s appearance in literature. The emergence of new facts related to this problem can accentuate the writer’s conscious focus on mastering the cultural experience of other literatures. O. Kobylianska often emphasized such moments in her own works, naming the authors that influenced her. Among them is the Danish writer Jens Peter Jacobsen. Kobylianska translated Jacobsen’s short story “There Should Have Been Roses” and wrote her original work — a prose poetry “Roses”, containing some allusions and coincidences pointing to the Danish writer’s work. However, this was not the only point connecting the literary worlds of J. P. Yacobsen and O. Kobylianska. The other fact of such creative ‘convergence’, unknown until now, is the Ukrainian translation of J. P. Jacobsen’s novella “Mogens” (the unfinished autograph translation is kept in the Manuscript Collections and Textual Studies Department of the Institute of Literature in the fund of Olha Kobylianska under the name “Morene” and with the note “Olha Kobylianska. Unfinished story” (DM ІL, fund 14, folder 1338). The present paper offers attribution of it, including the clarified title and approximate date. The Ukrainian text of the story has been prepared for publication. The inclusion of the incomplete Ukrainian translation of J. P. Jacobsen’s novella into scholarly discourse provides new insights for assessing peculiarities and stylistic parameters of O. Kobylianska’s prose of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This fact also enhances our understanding of the historical connections between Ukrainian and European literatures, especially Danish literature. The research of O. Kobylianska and J. P. Jacobsen’s works is based on the principles of textual studies, historical-genetic approach, comparative studies, and analytical anthropology.