Stepovyi, Oleksa

Iasyr [Slave]

Munich: Hilce, 1947. Hryhor’ev, Myroslav (illustrator). Illustrated wrappers. Item #831

56 pages: illustrations, portraits; 20 cm. Text in Ukrainian. The front wrapper is damaged and detached from the text block, several pages are chipped and torn.

This illustrated publication offers a vivid account of the lives of Ukrainian prisoners (Ostarbeiters) in Germany during the Second World War. Drawing from the poignant poems and heartfelt letters penned from German captivity, it provides a compelling narrative of their experiences and struggles during this tumultuous period.

Oleksa Voropai, literary pseudonym Oleksa Stepovyi (1913-1989), was an ethnographer, writer, and naturalist. After the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941, he moved to the North Caucasus, and in the fall of 1942, he returned to Ukraine and settled in the village of Voronovitsi in Vinnytsia region. In 1944, together with his wife, he headed west and reached Germany, where he stayed in camps for displaced persons. From the beginning of 1946, in the camp "Somme-Kaserne" (Augsburg), he continued his studies in ethnography and folklore at the branch of the Ukrainian Free University (UFU), whose activities were resumed in Munich.

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