''Maria'' is a 1934 historical novel by the Ukrainian author

Ulas Samchuk Ulas Oleksiiovych Samchuk (; 20 February 1905, Derman – 9 July 1987 Toronto) was a Ukrainian writer, propagandist, publicist, journalist, and a member of the Government of the Ukrainian People's Republic in exile. He was a member of the natio ...

. The novel, dedicated "to the mothers who died of hunger in Ukraine in 1932-33", follows the life of a village woman, Maria, between the 1861 emancipation of serfs to the 1932-33

Holodomor The Holodomor ( uk, Голодомо́р, Holodomor, ; derived from uk, морити голодом, lit=to kill by starvation, translit=moryty holodom, label=none), also known as the Terror-Famine or the Great Famine, was a man-made famin ...

. ''Maria'', the first work of fiction to treat the Ukrainian famine, has been included in post-1991 Ukrainian school curricula. The book is organised into three parts: A Book about the Birth of Maria, A Book of Maria's Days, and A Book about Bread. Orphaned at the age of six, Maria is illiterate and forced into work when young. Her first three children die of infectious disease. Her son Maksym, before his murder by his father, is a poor farmer who evicts his parents, denounces his brother, and watches his sister starve. Maksym "combines many features of the Holodomor perpetrator: a quisling, communist, profiteer, sadist and Russian-speaking". Behind Maksym, as the ' Other' bearing ultimate responsibility for the famine, lies the Soviet state centered in Moscow. "Our country has not known such a Tsar-like plundering", exclaims one tortured character.

English translation

References

{{Reflist 1934 novels Ukrainian novels Historical novels