In order to understand comprehensively the meaning of the literary work, it is necessary to analyze the consistent elements of the national culture and the specificity of the author’s outlook, his ideas about the tendencies of the society’s development. The culturosophy of historical novels in verse is especially interesting, because it includes the author’s historiosophical vision of the depicted events and the specific role of cultural constants and symbols in the poetic text. The object of the research was chosen due to the wide depicting of Ukrainian history in L. Horlach’s five novels in verse.
This dissertation is the first attempt to make a systematic and complex analysis of the cultorosophical motifs and universalias in L. Horlach’s novels. In literary studies “culturosophy” refers to the author’s system of views and ideas about the essence and significance of the realities of culture. The main concepts and categories (cultural universalia, archetype, mythologem, motif etc.) were defined. Cultorosophical motif is the motif, which reflects the general tendencies of culture and their comprehension by the author in the literary works, which embodies the specificity of the outlook of the certain nation in a particular historical epoch. The originality of the realization of L. Horlach’s historiosophical and cultorosophical conception in the genre of historical novel in verse was studied, as well as the reflection of the personality’s role in history.
The dialectical unity of the motifs of defeat, betrayal, and catharsis in the writer’s works was defined by the necessity of rethinking of the historical experience in the independent state. The motif of defeat is used in the author’s novels in the form of physical weakness, defeat in the battle (“Open field”), death and destruction of the bloodline (“Askold’s Finger”), ruining of a state (“Ruin”). The connection between the motif of defeat and the motif of betrayal proves, that in the writer’s culturosophy the betrayal is the cause of the failures of Ukrainians in the attempts to build an independent state. Betrayal and compromises with consciousness in L. Horlach’s novels are integral elements of politics (“Ruin”, “Open Field” and “Askold’s Finger”). The motif of betrayal is developed in the novel “Askold’s Finger” to the level of rejection of the beliefs and religion. The overcoming of the defeat and rethinking of the actions and decisions by the main characters in L. Horlach’s novels determine the reflexive narrative. The final stage of the heroes’ self-analyses is catharsis.
Important and symbolic in Ukrainian culture spatial objects (house, apiary, garden, field, Ukraine) occupy a significant place in the creation of the author’s myth in L. Horlach’s works. In the process of revealing of the worldview specificity in the Cossacks epoch the writer implements universalia of home in the images of the parental home, the security locus (“Ruin”), the military fortresses - Sich (“Clean Field”), Baturin (“Ruin”), “open field” - place of military feats and space of honor and glory (“Open Field”), Ukraine as a state (“Ruin”, “Open Field”).
The main cultorosophical motifs in L. Horlach’s novels (the motif of defeat, betrayal, catharsis, vitality and immortality) testify the reflection in literary works of the attempts to rethink the colonial experience and to live the traumatic situation behind, as well as to form free from the victim’s and inferiority complex idea of Ukraine’s way to independence.
