Polish Studies of Kyiv: works of International scientific conference, Kyiv, 23-25 of May, 2018. / chief editor R. Radyshevskyi. – vol. XXXV. – Kyiv: Talkom, 2019. – P. 252-258.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/psk.2019.35.252-258

Nakhlik O.

EVOLUTION OF THE LYRICAL HEROINE BY OKSANA LIATURYNSKA

Abstract. The article chronologically highlights the spiritual path of the lyrical heroine of the Ukrainian poetess-emigrant Oksana Liaturynska (1902–1970) – from maximalism to philosophism. On the materials of the poetry collections «Husla» (1938), «Kniazha emal’» (Princely Enamel, 1941), «Veselka» (Rainbow, 1955), «Bedryk» (1956), «Yahilka» (Vesnianka, 1971), «Tuha» (Sorrow, 1983), «Char-Zilla» (1983), the lyrical prose autobiographical collection «Materynky» (Marjoram, 1946) main changes of the emotional tone and mood (from idealistic youthful desires, impulses, hopes, self-assertion to disappointments, and yet – to the indestructibility of search a way out, immortality in pantheism, to the creation of the au- thor’s proper myth, the writing of «Molytvy») have been examined. Attention is also directed to various ways of expressing these emotional tones: including the speech of the author, the lyrical heroine and role-playing characters’ speech. A central, collective, truine image of the semi fairy tale «princesses» – alter ego of the author / the highly spiritual Woman / Ukraine is distinguished. The emphasis is on the potentiality (the term of Victor Frankl) of Liaturynska’s poetry.

In the books «Husli» and «Kniazha emal’» Liaturynska already manifested the main mood, motifs and tasks of all her creativity: courage, tenderness and nostalgia; the inseparability of civil and intimate, personal, historical and folkloric- mythological; the desire to preserve and glorify the cultural heritage of Ukraine (pagan, Christian, princely), to affirm force, will, state ideal – so desirable for the scattered sons and daughters of the Fatherland. The master of veiled confession expressed her own intimate feelings through landscape sketches, generalized folk-man-made images, in particular mas- culine. She also presented the memories of the childhood enriched with folk motifs. Later Liaturynska became a poetess of floristic imagery: namely, used personified dialogues of flowers or tender, dynamic, rhythmic author’s descriptions of their actions, coordinated with the seasons of the year – from spring to autumn – for instance, in the collection «Yahilka» (synonym to «vesnianka»); composed monologues of the medicinal plants (in the collection «Char-Zillia»).

Particular attention is paid to the masterpiece of Liaturynska – the poem «Yeronym» (1848) – historiosophical-religious meditation with a main image of the narrator – the ascetic-monk Yeronym, the chronicler of the «difficult days» of the post- war world. Under Yeronym’s mask can be identified the author’s face with her recognizable exclamatory intonation, distinct imagery. The female nature of the poetess prevails over the rather obscure male image of the monk, whose figure is made fragmentarily, with the transitions into polyphonic personal feelings.

Liaturynska managed to create a unique artistic-verbal pantheistic, historical, religious, philosophical and mythological world in which ritualism, rituality, harmony or sorrow for them prevail, a world in which strong, integral and cultural man and an ideal Ukrainian state become consolidated. The material in this article can contribute to further detailed study of the variable and multi-voiced poetry of Oksana Liaturynska.

Key words: Volyn, princely Rus, sadness for the Motherland (nostalgia), author’s myth, floristic imagery, folklorism, Christianity, pantheism, paganism, Jesus Christ.

Information about author: Nakhlik Oksana, candidate of philology, senior researcher, Ivan Franko Institut of the Na- tional Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Lviv).