For a High Price; Horses Are Not to Blame

Mikhail Mikhailovich Kotsiubynsky (05(17).09.1864 — 12(25).04.1913) was a Ukrainian writer, public figure, and revolutionary democrat. In his socio-political, philosophical, and aesthetic views, Kotsiubynsky followed a complex path—from liberal populism and culturalism to a revolutionary-democratic worldview, showing a deep interest in Marxism.

Kotsiubynsky’s main work is the novella “Fata Morgana” (parts 1–2, 1904–10) and other works written in 1904–1912, which provide a broad panorama of events of the period of the Revolution of 1905–07 and the subsequent reaction. The writer depicts scenes of the people’s violence against oppressors, the birth of a new village gathering the working class’s forces for a revolutionary push. In his short stories he showed a shattered provincial city life torn apart by pogroms (“Laughter,” “He is coming”; both 1906), the enraged ferment among the people (“How we traveled to Krynytsia,” 1908; “What is written in the book of life,” 1911), heroes of revolutionary underground movements contrasted with renegades (“On the Road,” “The Unknown,” 1907; “A Dream,” 1911), and the disgusting masks of reaction (“Persona grata,” 1908; “A Gift on Name’s Day,” 1912). He passionately exposed decadents as “looters of the revolution” in art (“Intermezzo,” 1909) and liberals as accomplices of reaction (“Horses aren’t to blame,” 1912). As a triumphant hymn to the all-conquering truth of life, the novella “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” sounded (1912). In Ukrainian literature history, Kotsiubynsky is known as an artist of the revolution who had a great influence on the development of Ukrainian Soviet prose (A. Holovko, O. Dovzhenko, Yu. Yanovsky, O. Honchar, and others). M. Gorky, with whom Kotsiubynsky was closely acquainted, highly valued his work. Kotsiubynsky’s works have been translated into many languages of the world.

Based on Kotsiubynsky’s works, films were made: “Bloody Dawn” (1957), “Horses aren’t to blame” (1957), and “For a High Price” (1958).