Vysotskii & old ballads (cont.) & "Ochi chernye" & Hrebinka

[Robert A. Rothstein]

The biographies of Jevhen Pavlovych Hrebinka (the author of "Chernye 
ochi," which served as the basis for "Ochi chernye") posted by Pani 
Natalia mention one of his lyrics that became a Ukrainian folksong, 
namely, "Ni, mamo, ne mozhna neliuba liubyt'." The text is about a young 
woman driven to an early grave because her mother pressed her to marry 
someone she didn't love so that the daughter wouldn't be left all alone 
when the mother died. This is only one example of many songs about what 
Ivan Franko, in an 1883 paper, called "zhinocha nevolia."  Franko's 
essay inspired me to write a paper ("Zhenskaia nevolia v ukrainskich i 
evereiskich narodnykh pesniakh"), the original publication of which is 
so obscure that even I have not seen the (allegedly) published version. 
For those interested, however, a revised English translation is 
available in an on-line publication at 
http://www.umass.edu/judaic/anniversaryvolume/Templates/articles/14-C2-Rothstein.pdf, 


Bob Rothstein

Natalia Pylypiuk wrote:

> Fellow Slavists might be interested in the fact that the author of
> "Ochi chernye"  was the Ukrainian  Romantic author
> Jevhen Pavlovych Hrebinka,  who -- like many members of his  
> generation --
> wrote both in Russian and Ukrainian
>
> For brief biographical sketches, visit:
> http://www.chl.kiev.ua/bibliograf/geroyi/Geroyi_files/Grebinka.htm
> http://www.ukrop.com/ua/encyclopaedia/100names/6157.html
>


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