In the thesis, through the prism of mythological criticism, the specifics of the living space in the prose by Maria Matios and the peculiarities of its construction with the help of mythopoetic means are investigated. An integral analysis of the use by the writer of mythological archetypes, images, motifs, stories, topos, allusions and reminiscences is carried out, the artistic colouring of mythological images used in her prose works is revealed. In the dissertation the artistic expediency of the chronotope in the prose by Maria Matios is substantiated. The conceptual role of the myth in building a living space is explored. The role of the chronotope in the determination of the existence of characters of the writer’s artistic world is revealed. The discovery of the mythological code made it possible to explore the concept of the artistic interpretation of myth in the prose by Maria Matios.
The thesis outlines the main features of the writer’s prose, which determine the specifics of the study of the mythopoetics of her creativity: deepening in the «historical bunkers», «mental "seats" in Bukovyna», rootedness in folk subjects, concentration on the situations of spatial and psychological frontier, increased attention to man and its inner world, the saturation of mythosymbols, fatalism, mythopoetic features and religiosity of the worldview.
It is proved that in the process of creating the artistic universe, Maria Matios, imitating the national model of the world, artistically modifies national images and archetypes, creating an original picture of the world, filling it with symbols, decoding which contributes to a deeper understanding of the creative work of the writer. An archetypal series of elements of being, through which Maria Matios creates her ontological model of the world, represented by the images of water, fire, earth and air.
In the thesis the specificity of forming the author’s conception of being in the prose by Maria Matios is substantiated through the interweaving of numerous religious-mythological and folklore motifs, which the writer modifies, rethinking their meaning and giving them new semantic shades. Important in this context is the fabulous motive of prohibition-violation.
On numerous examples it was traced that in the creation of Maria Matios, the concept of sin and inevitable punishment is crossed through. It is the core around of which concentrates all other key religious and mythological motifs, which in a special way form an art picture of the writer’s world. Such contamination of mythological and biblical motives in the creation of Maria Matios is determined by the synthesis of paganism and Christianity in the national consciousness of the writer’s prose characters.
In the thesis an analysis of the chronotopic level of the prose by Maria Matios revealed a close relationship of three universals in the writer’s artistic world – man, space and time. It is emphasized that the center of this chronotopic complex is first of all a person, a character, and space and time are needed by the writer in order to explore the individual and his inner world, his existential choice, the truth of life and the boundless world of suffering. A characteristic feature of the writer’s prose is determined temporal conditionality of the specifics of the external and local types of space, which appear to be the expressions of the inner world of the characters. Most characters of Maria Matios’ prose – «snails in their huts».
In the dissertation it is carried out a thorough study of the attributes of the interior and exterior in the artistic world of Maria Matios, that have a peculiar mythopoetic code in the structuring space. It is proved, that one of the main elements of the writer’s mythopoetically created artistic universe is the topos of the spatial frontier. Expression of the psychological and existential boundaries through the spatial frontier is a decisive feature of the author’s concept of the structuring space.
