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<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nThroughout Slavic folklore, the role of the grandmother is that of a storyteller and Yamichuk\u2019s folklore for the industrialized<\/a> shows no difference. Yakimchuk\u2019s grandmother shares stories, fables that pose a warning. Her warning in the fourth canto is of the danger posed by the coal mines to the young men. Yakimchuk\u2019s grandmother as she appears in poetry is poignant. It clearly highlights her role as both a storyteller and a protector, delivering an exclamatory \u201cwait!\u201d before depicting the harm that lies within the mines (49). The further description that follows creates a gruesome metaphor that provides insight into the nature of the mines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n don\u2019t come inside<\/p>\n\n\n\n you might not return<\/p>\n\n\n\n like a child of a mother<\/p>\n\n\n\n who doesn\u2019t want to give birth<\/p>\n\n\n\n While gruesome in nature, the poem returns to its folkloric nature in the final lines. It illustrated real-life horrors while invoking a folkloric perspective by assigning such harm and death to the nature of apricots (49). By concluding,<\/p>\n\n\n\n and now when you eat apricots<\/p>\n\n\n\n you find coals inside<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yakimchuk establishes the idea that the death of men in the Donbas is intertwined with the natural world, creating folklore from real, gruesome, experience (51). While the grandmother\u2019s fairytale was didactic in nature, it takes up the same role as other folklore pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Folkloric tales, despite their significance in Slavic and other cultures are often regarded as false, as backward<\/em> in nature. When hearing of Slavic creatures such as the domovoy<\/em> and his protection and attachment to a home, a Westerner would likely dismiss the validity of the piece as a whole. As such, those who tell them are often seen as unintelligent, as elderly village women<\/em>, who may have nothing better to do. While the Slavic reality is that these women are educators, when being translated to English, this meaning is often lost. The same can be said for Yakimchuk\u2019s piece, whether done intentionally or not. Upon their translation to English and arrival into the United States, Yakimchuk\u2019s poems may be seen as an exaggeration, as an ill-fitting description of industrialization, despite the truth behind them. And yet, Yakimchuk makes the connection anyway, because both folklore and the harsh reality of industrialization are what characterize life in the Donbas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ally Britton-Heitz is a second-year student majoring in Diplomacy and Global Affairs and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. She is an undergraduate fellow at the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Ally Britton-Heitz Lyuba Yakimchuk\u2019s poems are threaded with commentary about and insight into the role of gender in the war-torn Donbas region. Within the namesake for her collection of poems, \u201cApricots of Donbas\u201d, the stories of Yakimchuk\u2019s family are … Continue reading