a tale of the opryshky set down by Petro Shekeryk-Donykiv of Holovy, from Volodymyr Hnatiuk, Narodni opovidannia pro opryshkiv (1910)

The opryshky were the outlaws of the Carpathian highlands, and Oleksa Dovbush, killed in 1745, was the greatest of them. This short telling was written down at Holovy, a Hutsul village in the Kosiv district, on 5 September 1907 by Petro Shekeryk-Donykiv, and printed by Volodymyr Hnatiuk in 1910. The writer passes on what his father told him: how their forefather Palii Shekeryk, as a boy of twelve or thirteen, saw Dovbush on the trail at Prosichky, and what the outlaw said to him about the outlaw's life.

Translation

My father used to tell me that our great-great-grandfather, Palii Shekeryk Andriichynkiv, saw Oleksa Dovbush with his own eyes in the village of Holovy, on the trail at Prosichky, out there in the field (where Mykhailo Kharinchuk's house is now).

Palii Shekeryk told of Dovbush like this:

I was maybe twelve then, or maybe thirteen years old, just a lad. But I know it well. I went out into the field, and stopped, and there I stand. And all at once I saw: here comes Dovbush Oleksa with his young men.

Dovbush Oleksa had a sardak on his shoulders. And the breast-panels, the buttons and the cords of the sardak were all of gold thread. It's that fine, it glitters in the sun like gold. A hat with metal plates and peacock feathers. And the weapons? All of it so fine it was frightful. Dovbush was whistling on a leaf, as finely as on a fiddle.

I stared so at Dovbush that my mouth fell open. Dovbush stopped and came over to me, and says: “Well now, boy, what are you staring at me like that for? Mind you don't get the itch to go off with the opryshky.

“For I am Dovbush, and I'm afraid of nobody, and yet when anything rustles in the forest, my heart gives a jolt: isn't it some treachery against me, or isn't it some posse come for us? Every moment I am unsafe, and I have to keep watch over myself. Best of all is to work a homestead and be a gazda, for then a man is safe in his life.”

Dovbush Oleksa stroked me on the head and went on his way, playing on the leaf. And I marked his words well, and never went off with the opryshky.

This is true, for Palii Shekeryk did not like to lie.

Colophon

Translated from Volodymyr Hnatiuk (ed.), Narodni opovidannia pro opryshkiv (Etnohrafichnyi zbirnyk 26; Lviv: Naukove tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1910), no. 62, pp. 96–97. Hnatiuk's record line reads “Holovy, 5 September 1907, recorded by Petro Shekeryk-Donykiv”; he names no other teller. The writer tells what his diedia told him, and the inner story is told in Palii Shekeryk's own words. The text was transcribed from the page images of the Internet Archive scan. Hnatiuk's glossary at the back of the volume settles these words: diedia is “father”; Palii is the Hutsul form of Panteleimon; a plai is a path cut through the forest between the trees, and Prosichky is the place in Holovy where a way was once cut through from one ridge to the next, so na plaiu Prosichky is “on the trail at Prosichky”; the gridushky are the front panel of the sardak and the corded embroidery on its breast and skirts, rendered “the breast-panels”; snury are the braided cords that trim the sardak's edges; sukhozoloto is gilt or silvered thread for embroidery, “gold thread”; the krysania is the Hutsul hat; piv u lyst is from pity u lyst, “to whistle on a leaf”, and so yhraiuchi u lyst, “playing on the leaf”; sokotyty is “to guard”, so mushu sy sokotyty is “I have to keep watch over myself”; the rovta is a band of men raised under the lead of the pushkars, the police whose duty was to catch the opryshky in the mountains, rendered “a posse”. Read from knowledge of the language: prepredid, “great-great-grandfather”; bliekhy on the hat as metal plates (standard bliakhy; the glossary's bliekhuvaty v kaidany, “to put in irons”, comes from the same word for sheet metal); pavy, “peacocks”, as the peacock feathers worn on the hat; rot rozziivyv, “my mouth fell open”; kortilo, from kortity, to itch or long to do a thing; zatiemyv, “marked, kept in mind” (standard zatiamyv); the ledini, Dovbush's “young men” (elsewhere lehini). Sertse torne, “my heart gives a jolt”, is read as the Hutsul form of torhne, “jerks, starts”; no. 63 of the same volume, which also takes place on the Prosichky at Holovy, gives the same fear in other words: there Dovbush tells a staring boy that whenever anything rustles in the forest, his heart freezes. Shcho strakh, literally “that it's a fear”, is a common way of saying “terribly”, and is rendered “so fine it was frightful”. Nybezpechnyi and bezpechnyi are kept as the pair the teller makes of them, “unsafe” and “safe”. Andriichynkiv is Palii's house-name and is kept as a name. The sardak, the Hutsul's woollen coat, and the gazda, the householder, are kept in their own names, and Dovbush is called “Dovbush Oleksa”, surname first, wherever the teller calls him so. The teller shifts between past and present (“I stopped, and there I stand”), and the English keeps his tenses.

No English translation of this narrative is known to us.

© 2026 Tianmu Anglican Church. This English translation is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: you may share and adapt it for non-commercial use with credit to the Good Works Library, tianmu.org. The source text keeps its own terms. For other uses, see Rights and Reuse.

🌲

Source Text: Оповіданє Палїя Шекерика про Олексу Довбуша

The Hutsul text as printed by Hnatiuk (1910), no. 62, transcribed from the page images; line-end hyphens are joined, and two of Hnatiuk's longer paragraphs are divided here at the same places as the English.

Розказував минї дєдя, шо наш препредїд Палїй Шекерик Андрійчинків видїв на власні очі Олексу Довбушя в селї Головах на плаю Про́сїчьки, отам на поли (де тепер хата Михайла Харінчука).

Розказував Палїй Шекерик про Довбушя так:

Я мав тогди може дванацїть, а може тринацїть років, саме хлопчіше. Але добре знаю. Я вийшов на поле тай став тай стою. Аж нараз я уздрів: иде Довбуш Олекса з своїми ледїнями.

На Довбушу Олексї був сардак на плечьох. А грідушки, ґудзики и снури у сардака були з самої сухозолоти. То таке файне, блишіт ци до сонця, єк золото. Крисаня з блєхами та с павами. А зброя? То все таке файне, шо страх. Довбуш пів у лист, так файно, єк у скрипку.

Я так задивив си на Довбушя, шо аж рот роззївив. Довбуш став тай прийшов ид минї, тай каже: А шо, хлопчьи, так си дивиш на мене? Диви си, аби тебе ни кортїло ити в опришки.

Бо я Довбуш и никого си ни бою, а шє єк шо у лїсї зашелести, то минї серце торне, ци то ни є єка зрада на мене, або ци то ни є єка ровта на нас. Кождої хвилї я нибезпечьний и мушу си сокотити. Найлїпше, ґаздувати и бути ґаздов, бо тогди чьоловік є безпечний свого житя.

Погладив мене Довбуш Олекса по голові тай пишов далї играючі у лист. А я собі добре затємив єго слова, тай ни ходив ув опришки.

Це правдиве, бо Палїй Шекерик не любив брехати.

Source Colophon

Volodymyr Hnatiuk (ed.), Narodni opovidannia pro opryshkiv (Etnohrafichnyi zbirnyk 26; Lviv: Naukove tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1910), no. 62, pp. 96–97. Public domain. Transcribed from the page images of the Internet Archive scan (identifier etnohr_26). Hnatiuk's phonetic spelling of the Hutsul is kept as printed, with its є, ї, ґ and the stress mark in Про́сїчьки. Hnatiuk's footnotes are not reproduced; he gives none for this narrative. His record line reads: Голови, 5 вересня, 1907, зап. Петро Шекерик-Доників.

🌲