Chumachenko O. Myth and Artistic Game in the Esthetics of Neoromanticism

The proposed dissertation discusses the problem of myth and its creation in Ukrainian literature and cinema from the 1920s to the 1970s based on the esthetics of neoromanticism: here the new romantic movement at the beginning of the 20th century. In Ukraine this movement included a re-assesment of revolutionary ideas and a search for national identity.The cultural analysis of the Ukrainian neoromanticism is based on theories of Theodore Adorno, Clifford Geertz, Mircea Eliade, Viacheslav Ivanov and Tomaz Gamkrelidze, and contemporary works of George Grabowich, Tamara Hundorova and Vira Aheeva who examine modern and post-modern elements in Ukrainian literature. The dissertation includes a comparative survey of literature and cinema. Works of Jurii Yanovsky, Oleksandr Dovzhenko and Ivan Bahrianyi are placed in the context of diverse artistic movements of 1920-70s in Ukraine and Russia represented by Borys Antonenko-Davydovych, Jurii Lypa, Mykola Khvyliovyj, Jurii Klen, Evgen Pluzhnyk, Evgen Malaniuk, Nikolai Tikhonov, Eduard Bagritskii, Larisa Reisner and Soviet action movies with Kipling-style plots and Dovzhenko-style cinematography. One of the new ideas developed in the dissertation is based on the comparison of Ukrainian neoromantic authors such as Jurii Yanovskii and Ivan Bahrianyi with Rudyard Kipling. The presented outline of Kipling's literary evolution stresses his influence on the Russian literature of the so-called "silver age" (Nikolai Gumiliov) and the Soviet poetry of 1920-30s (Nikolai Tikhonov and Eduard Bagritskii). Gumiliov's methaphoric poetic style and artistic manner are analyzed both in the context of Johann Huizinga's game theory and in their connection with Slavic folklore, mythology and cultural archetypes in general as described by Carl Jung. In Soviet Ukraine neoromantic ideas were developed early in the period of Ukrainization (1925-32). This development is presented through the analyses of modernism and Kipling's tradition in Jurii Yanovskii's novel Four Swords against abackground of the diverse neoromantic styles in Soviet poetry and documentary prose (Larissa Reisner). In the 1940s Ivan Bahrianyi created an exotic world on Kipling's model in his novel The Tiger Hunters. He presented in a romantic manner the hero's successful personal quest for freedom. In this he was more consistent than Yanovskii who had to conform to Soviet literary policies. The dichotomy between the imagined neoromantic world and reality was the main problem for many Soviet Ukrainian writers including Mykola Khvyliovii and Yevhen Pluzhnyk and also for the diasporan poets like Yevhen Malaniuk. Ukrainian literature and arts developed in similar directions both in the metropolis and in the diaspora. The neoromantic search for an ideal world was reflected in the poetic films of Oleksandr Dovzhenko. After him Soviet cinema of the 1970s shows a post-modern interpretation of well known symbols and cinematographic images. Just as in West European and American cinema Kipling's heritage became a declaration of anti-opression ideas, Dovzhenko's tradition based on neromanticism appeared in Soviet cinema in connection with the problem of otherness.This introduced a certain amount of anti-colonialistic ideas into the Soviet cinema.The development of Ukrainian neoromanticism show us the role of myth and artistic game in the process of t he post-modern development of literature and сinema.