Iryna Wilde's trilogy is a text about the difficulty of a girl's adaptation to the adult world, to the demands, values, and sometimes double morality of the beginning of the 20th century. Even one's own home becomes a place of psychological trauma and sexual violence. Already there, Wilde's heroine feels like a pinned butterfly, a colorful, festively dressed creature admired by connoisseurs of the collection. A thirteen-year-old girl exists primarily to be liked and entertained. School and social life only increase the feeling of suffocation for the girl.
But this is the moment when the requirements of the patriarchal society come into complete contradiction with the real needs of life, which were caused by the First World War. This generation is already different. And the main character's deliberate refusal to marry becomes the clearest demonstration of these changes.
But growing up is not only the freedom of personal choices but also political growth. The pressure of colonial culture pushes Darka to make a conscious political choice — from the gymnasium organization, in which Darka participates more out of curiosity about the Ukrainian language and culture, to active participation in the Ukrainian movement of Bukovyna.
About the series "Non-canon canon"
Thinking about the canon of Ukrainian literature, only a few names from the school curriculum come to mind: Shevchenko, Franko, and Nechuy-Levytskyi. Although in reality, this list is much more extensive and more diverse.
Before you are the series "Non-canon canon", with the help of which we want to talk about all those we did not know, whose texts we read without understanding the context of the reality of the time. Before you are a series designed to rediscover familiar strangers. You will find a range of Ukrainian authors and their works - from Pidmohylnyi and Barhianyi to Khvylovyi and Johansen, from an elegant intellectual novel to a dynamic adventure, from innovative urban prose to psychological texts.
Keys accompany each text for reading from Ukrainian literary experts. They will tell you what to pay attention to and help you look at the texts of Ukrainian classics in a new way.
