Interpretation and Resistance

The Ukrainian Reception of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Buckwheat”

Abstract

This article examines the nineteenth-century Ukrainian reception of Hans Christian Andersen through Mykhailo Starytskyi’s 1873 translation of “The Buckwheat,” produced under conditions of Russian imperial censorship. Using Pascale Casanova’s theory of literary capital and the dynamics of dominated and dominant literatures, the study interprets Starytskyi’s translational choices as cultural and symbolic interventions that sought to strengthen the position of Ukrainian literature within an asymmetrical literary field. Through neologisms, lexical innovations, and the use of culturally specific imagery, Starytskyi recontextualized Andersen’s tale within Ukrainian cultural traditions. The article also considers Mykola Murashko’s illustrations as paratexts that reinforce this localized reading. Together, these adaptations demonstrate how “The Buckwheat” became a site for articulating cultural identity and accruing literary capital.