The Princess

A novel considered one of the first works in Ukrainian literature built around the inner life of a woman choosing her own path. Natalka Verkovychivna, an orphan in her relatives' house, refuses the script of an advantageous marriage prepared for her and seeks a way to live by her own work and education. Kobylianska tells the story through the heroine's diary entries, and that form makes it possible to show not events but the growth of self-awareness. The novel provoked lively polemic: the question of a woman's right to independence was new to Ukrainian prose of the period. "The Princess" remains a key text for any discussion of early Ukrainian modernism and feminism. The novel became a reference point for later generations of women writers addressing female experience and independence. Contemporary reissues add prefaces explaining the novel's place in the history of Ukrainian women's writing.