The Mountains are Smoking


The Mountains are Smoking is a novel by the Polish and Ukrainian writer Yaroslav Halan written in Polish in 1938. It was published as a single book by a private Lviv publisher Myśl under the alias Miron Jaro.
The story has been written in the mountain village Nyzhniy Bereziv.

Plot

The events of the story take place in the early 1920s, in a Hutsul village on the Polish-Romanian border in Pokuttia. Olga, a priest’s daughter, before her father died, makes him promise to marry his friend Martyn Pogodniak, a Polish officer of the local border outpost. However, later she falls in love with the «noble robber» Ivan Semeniuk. Over time they realize that they couldn't live without each other and decide to escape but the robber’s wife Marichka snitches on them to the officer.

Ukrainian editions

  • 1956, Kyiv, Radiansky Pysmennyk. Translated by Stepan Trofymuk and his wife Oksana.
  • 1959, Kyiv, Dnipro Publishers. The same translation. 50,000 copies.

Adapted Screenplay