Abstract
The late period of Ivan Franko's artistic work is characterized by the presence of a number of stories that contain a naturalistic reproduction of Jewish themes. In such stories as «Pure Race», «In the Prison Hospital», «In the Carpentry», «In the Forge (From My Memories)» there are memories of the author about different stages of his life, which clearly distinguishes the Jewish theme revealed by naturalistic means.The story «Pure Race» demonstrates the collision in the life of an old Jew who found himself in a compartment of a train with representatives of other nationalities. The description of events in the compartment is presented with elements of naturalism – the use of factualism and a detailed description of events, the objectivity of the image. The story «In the prison hospital» has the following naturalistic features: the story tells about the stay in the hospital of two or three seriously ill people with a detailed description of the circumstances of their lives with factual accuracy. The story «In the Carpentry» contains a fragment from the life of a Jew, written by the author from his youthful memories and under the influence of a certain historical moment. The story describes the terrible murder of calves by a Jewish boy, with the fixation of all the details that convey all the burden of what was seen in the soul of the hero. The story «In the Forge (From my memories)» contains the author's childhood memories from his stay in the father's forge with the recording of all the small moments of his impressions. In the memoirs there is a naturalistic description with a detailed account of events in life of Boryslav.In the above stories, with the help of naturalistic means, the problems of Jewish life in Galicia are reproduced. Among the naturalistic features of the depiction of Jewish figures there are: factography, detailed description with fixation of all the details as a consequence of scientific accuracy, plausibility, objectivity of reproduction and unity in the depiction of natural and social factors, which together makes the reader their witness.