У Тарасову ніч
Варавва О. П. У Тарасову ніч : драм. малюнок / О. Кобець [псевд.]. – Одеса : Воля й доля, 1917. – 14 с. – (Вид-во «Воля й доля» ; ч[исло] 4). – On the cover: Tarasov’s Night.
Dramatic drawing ‘Tarasov's Night’ by Oleksii Petrovych Varavva (1882–1967) – writer, poet and editor, member of the Association of Ukrainian Writers in the Diaspora ‘Slovo’ (1954–1997) – is a short semi-fantastic dramatic work dedicated to the idea of Ukraine's liberation from Moscow's captivity. The author artistically interprets the national liberation motifs of Ukrainian history and the cult of Taras Shevchenko as a spiritual symbol of the struggle for freedom.
The plot is built around a symbolic action connected with Taras's grave, which becomes a source of spiritual awakening and heralds the coming of the ‘great time’ of national liberation. These ideological accents appeal to themes of national memory, historical injustice, the awakening of national consciousness, and moral choice.
This publication, produced in Odesa in 1917 by Vitaly Borovik's publishing house ‘Volia y Dolia’, is of considerable historical, cultural and bibliographical significance. It is a clear example of Ukrainian publishing activity in Odesa during the Ukrainian Revolution (1917–1921), when printed books became an important tool for national self-awareness and cultural mobilisation of society.