Institutka. Short Stories

The “Non-Canonical Canon” series is a way to talk about those we did not know, whose texts we read without understanding the context of their time. It brings together a wide range of Ukrainian authors and their works. Each text is accompanied by reading guides by Ukrainian literary scholars.

Marko Vovchok — writer and early feminist figure — is considered one of the first authors of psychological realism. Her work is a manifesto of freedom within a world of total oppression. In her stories and the central novella Institutka, she creates vivid heroines who refuse to accept lives of subjugation.

On one side is a spoiled, cruel young lady whose education in a boarding school has done nothing to temper her — she turns the lives of others into hell through manipulation and abuse. On the other is the peasant woman Ustyna, who defends her dignity under any circumstances and is ready to sacrifice everything for the right to control her own life.