Post-War Years of Life of Bukovinian Rusins in Olha Kobylianska's Epistolary

Productive development of the ego-history subject space is a most crucial task of historical writing in terms of the individual's socio-cultural practice retrospective. This research is based on the correspondence between O. Kobylianska and the figures of the UPR (Nikita Shapoval and his wife Olga Shapoval, Pavlo Bogatsky) in 1918-1932. The twelve letters were found in the Central State Achieves of Higher Bodies of Ukraine. The study of the Bukovinian writer's epistolary aims at revealing the live conditions and circumstances of local Ukrainians in the interwar period. The inclusion of Bukovina in the Kingdom of Romania led to Romanisation of the region. O. Kobylianska, who lived in Chernivtsi and had already become part of the Ukrainian literary canon, was recognised by local Ukrainians as the symbol of the national survival. The reflection of everyday routine in her correspondence is represented through the prism of their role for the elderly writer in the context of constant rethinking of the Ukrainian movement. The analysis of Kobylianska's collection of letters demonstrates that she was helpless in the face of hard life circumstances, such as high prices, lack of food, lack of own house (she had to live at her relatives), cold, no reliable source of income, living in debt, brokerage deals in currency exchange, deterioration of health and long lasting lack of information about relatives and friends. The lonely sick writer was supported by local Ukrainians and received the financial support and invitations to participate in publishing projects from Ukrainian emigre. Her correspondence reveals the motif of control over outgoing information (hers and that of addressees') as the sign of unfreedom in the public atmosphere in sub-Romanian Bukovina.

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