Zinovjeva T. Evolution of the East Ukrainian Vertep

The dissertation is devoted to the investigation of cultural aspects of evolution of the Ukrainian vertep (a kind of the puppet theatre), and, in particular, its East-Ukrainian variety. The main idea is that evolution of this phenomenon was not a kind of linear movement from church-mystery performances to the "sweeping victory" of secularism, everyday life or politics, but has been oscillatory in character, according to worldviews and aesthetic priorities of various epochs. There are investigated problems of emergence, specificity, typology, character of desacralization and artistic evolution of the vertep. Informational and artistic significance of religious action in the vertep is shown, as it is vertep that reveals typology of the whole performance, area of formation and functioning of each specific vertep theatre.