"Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors" is a love story of two descendants of hostile families, such as Ukrainian Romeo and Juliet - Ivan and Marichka, which unfolds in the middle of the Carpathian mountains. Actually, the Carpathians themselves appear in this text as if they were a separate character, full of legends and spirits.
Kotsiubynsky took an extremely responsible approach to the reproduction of the world of Hutsul's beliefs and traditions. He studied the everyday life and dialects of Hutsul villages, compiled dictionaries, looked for local flowers and herbs, and went to weddings and other traditional rituals. All this in order to convey the atmosphere of that corner of the world as faithfully as possible.
Chuhaister, shcheznyk, mavka, and molfar, which call for bad weather. And along with that love, a difficult choice between heavenly love and earthly love. Fictional and real, pagan and Christian, everything is woven into one story, where spirits rule over man, a man over spirits, and reality itself becomes part of the myth.
About the Gift Classic series
The Gift Classic series will include the most famous works of Ukrainian literature. In this series, the emphasis is on the aesthetics of the publication — elafin binding with silver embossing, lassé, thick paper, and colored endpapers. Each edition will be supplemented with two articles from well-known artists, critics, and experts. One of them is an explanation of the text and its place in Ukrainian literature by well-known literary experts. The second article is about how the classic text was still embodied in other genres of art - in cinema, theater, and painting. What is special about the film production "Shadows" by Serhii Paradzhanov? Why did the modern TV series "To Catch the Kaidash" affect the audience so much? How did theater directors rethink the works of Ivan Franko and Lesia Ukrainka?
