Land

A novella by Olha Kobylianska based on a real tragedy in the Bukovynian village of Dymka, where one brother killed another over land. Kobylianska turns a criminal case into a study of how property deforms family ties. The sons of Ivonika and Mariika — the gentle Mykhailo and the envious Sava — embody two ways of relating to land: as the meaning of labour and as an object of possession. The writer sets out peasant life in detail while giving the land an almost mythological weight: it both feeds and demands sacrifice. The work is considered one of the most profound Ukrainian novellas about the village and one of the strongest texts about the nature of ownership. The novella has been staged repeatedly, and its language remains the subject of dedicated philological study. Modern editions accompany the work with essays on the Bukovynian context and on the real event that underlies the plot.