Corneliy Irod as a novelist
Authors:   Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, Antofiichuk Volodymyr 
Published: March 2023

The article provides a general overview of the prose by K. Irod, one of the leading representatives of Ukrainian literature in Romania. The author analyses problem-thematic and genre-style features of the writer’s novels and short stories found in the collections of poems «Light and Shadow» (1974), «White Piano» (1990), «From Yesterday to Tomorrow» (2014), «Chixuri» (2015). They are characterized by a philosophical insight into the meaning and the essence of human existence. The writer focuses on the moral-ethical and social-psychological challenges of his reality and interprets them from the standpoint of universal spiritual values. With exceptionally sharp irony and humour, he poses the question of moral choice, especially when it comes to loyalty and betrayal, mercy and cruelty, conscience and hypocrisy, and honesty and meanness. It is emphasized that K. Irod is a skillful storyteller, whose creative personality is manifested in the variety of themes and genre-style abundance. The external plot of his works consistently reveals some secret, solves an unexpected riddle, investigates a certain puzzling story, etc. Some of his works are characterized by elements of adventure, detective genre, romantic mini-novel, bitterly funny (according to the writer’s definition) memories, etc. The main attention of the article is paid to the tetralogy «Holiday», which includes four novels: «The Eve» (1975), «Morning» (1984), «The Sun in the Eyes» (1988) and «The Enemy of My Enemy» (2022). Each of them is an independent finished piece of work. According to the artistic design, plot development, conflict and main characters, it forms a complete epic work about the village called Zlatna in the South Bukovyna region in the middle of the 20th century and at the same time it reproduces typical events from the history of the entire country. In the centre of the story, there is the Dorin family. It is through the prism of the actions of the head of the family Ilash, his wife Ivona, and later their children that the main storylines of the tetralogy are built. It has been found that the character of epic thinking, the lyricism of the story and the depiction of human characters make K. Irod’s work similar to M. Stelmakh’s trilogy about the fate of the Ukrainian village in the complex vortex of events taking place in the first half of the 20th century (e.g. the novels «The Great Family», 1951; «Human Blood is Not Water», 1957; «Bread and Salt», 1958) and to B. Kharchuk’s tetralogy «Volyn» (1959 – 1965; second edition, 1988), which, depicting the story of the Hnatyuk family, reveals the most diverse aspects of the life of a western Ukrainian village. K. Irod depicted broad strata of the people’s lives in the pre-war and post-war times, their everyday problems and defining features of the national character. He summarized the flow of historical events connecting them with the present and future of the entire country. Moreover, he created the image of a strong-willed, determined person, capable of a protest against injustice, who is ready to fight for the honour and dignity of one’s kind, ready to defend the interests of the whole community even holding a weapon in their hands.