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, of whom Oleksa Dovbush is the most famous; the Hutsuls remember them as avengers of the wronged. This short piece opens Volodymyr Hnatiuk's 1910 collection of popular tales about them. It was written down in 1907 at Holovy, a Hutsul village in the Kosiv district, by Petro Shekeryk-Donykiv, a young man of the village, and is told in the first person: come down to Kosiv for the fair, the narrator and his companions lodge with a very old Jew, who remembers what the Hutsuls of the old days were like.

Translation

We came down to Kosiv for the fair, and went to put up with a host, a very old Jew. We spent the night at that Jew's, and there, one word leading to another, our talk came round to the Hutsuls of old and the Hutsuls of today. And the Jew says: “Eh, what is he worth any more, the poor wretch, the Hutsul of today! Those were people in the old days, the Hutsuls, and now? Oho!

“In the old days a Hutsul came to town dressed as if for war. A gun across his shoulder, three pistols in his belt, and some four knives, a bartka in his hands, and his powder-horns full of powder. He comes into a shop, takes whatever he wants, and that's the last you see of it. On top of that he gives you a tug by the beard and spits in your beard, and don't you say a thing, or it's death. And when the fair came round, we'd be running already, for death hung very heavy then!

“And now the Hutsul goes about without so much as a stick. And when he comes into a shop, they call him a pig, thump him on the back, and out the door with him! It isn't now the way it was in the old days.” The Jew shook his head and fell silent.

Colophon

Translated from Volodymyr Hnatiuk (ed.), Narodni opovidannia pro opryshkiv (Etnohrafichnyi zbirnyk 26; Lviv: Naukove tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1910), no. 1, p. 1, the first piece in the book. Hnatiuk gives it as recorded (zap.) at Holovy, Kosiv district, in 1907, by Petro Shekeryk-Donykiv; he names no other teller, and the piece is told in the first person. The text was transcribed from the page images of the Internet Archive scan. Hnatiuk's own glossary at the back of the volume settles two words: sarako is the pitying vocative of sarakyi, “poor, unhappy”, so the old man calls the Hutsul of today “the poor wretch”; and varko is the adverb of varkyi, which Hnatiuk glosses “heavy” (tiazhkyi), so duzhe varko smerty is rendered “death hung very heavy”. Zaishly na gazdu is read as “went to put up with a host”: gazda is the Hutsul householder, here the man who lodges travellers. The bartka is the Hutsul's long-handled hatchet, carried like a staff, and is kept in its own name; buk, a beech cudgel, is “a stick”.

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.

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Source Text: Гуцул давно й тепер

The Hutsul text as printed by Hnatiuk (1910), no. 1, transcribed from the page images; line-end hyphens are joined, and Hnatiuk's single paragraph is divided here at the same places as the English.

Зийшли ми до Косова на єрмарок тай зайшли на ґазду, до одного дуже старого Жида. Ночювали ми в того Жида тай там слово по слову, вийшли ми говирков на Гуцулив давних, а теперішних. А Жид каже: „Ей, шо то вжі, сарако, варте теперішний Гуцул. То май давно було люде, Гуцули, а тепер? Ого!

Давно прийшло Гуцул у місто убране хоть на войну. Почерез плечя кріс, за ременем троє пістолєт, з чьотири ножі, бартка в руках, а повні порошницї пороху. Прийде у склеп, набере, шо хочє, тай пропало. Шє за бороду потермасає, наплює у бороду и ничь ни кажи́, бо смерть. А єк прийде єрмарок, то ми вже тїкало, бо тогди дуже варко смерти!

А тепер Гуцул ходи и без бука. А єк прийде у склеп, то назвут єго свиня, гримнут у плечя, тай марш за двері! Ни так тепер, ек було давно“. — Жид похітав головов тай замовк.

Source Colophon

Volodymyr Hnatiuk (ed.), Narodni opovidannia pro opryshkiv (Etnohrafichnyi zbirnyk 26; Lviv: Naukove tovarystvo im. Shevchenka, 1910), no. 1, p. 1. Public domain. Transcribed from the page images of the Internet Archive scan (identifier etnohr_26). Hnatiuk's phonetic spelling is kept as printed, with є, ї and the stress mark in кажи́, and with ек beside єк where the print has both; his footnotes are not reproduced.

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