Alina A. Zhelnovach. Social myth and its artistic epitome in the drama of I. Bahrianyi (“Morituri”, “Rozhrom”, “Heneral”). – Qualification research paper, manuscript.
Thesis for a Candidate Degree in Philology (PhD): Specialty 10.01.01 – Ukrainian literature. – V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Kharkiv, 2018.
The social myth of the 30’s and 40’s of XX century was an appropriate way for the formation and implementation of the political course of the communist party in the USSR. It arose on the basis of classical mythology, reflecting its ideological principles and didactic material in a different way. The role of social myth as a special communicative discourse, a secondary semiotic system with a suggestive character is emphasized in our work.
The soviet social myth became the basis of the official literary discourse called socialist realism. Such artistic texts were to show positive communist heroes, women who work on a par with men and children as heirs of a great socialist mission.
Permanent physical persecution and the forced nature of socialist realism eliminated the full development of Ukrainian literature in the USSR. So, a certain number of the Ukrainian writers emigrated.
Ukrainian emigration literature of the period of the Second World War remains an unexplored field in the national literary criticism. The members of MUR chose an image of the Ukrainian people and the Motherland as the central reference point for their artistic texts. However, they could not see their real condition. Therefore, the artists visualized the virtual image of Ukraine and thus created the national mythological structure on the pages of their texts.
I. Bahrianyi is considered to be one of the most prominent figures of the MUR. I. Bahrianyi destroys the soviet social myth and forms the artistic “anti-myth” in the play “Morituri”, expressly depicting the real events of the repressions of 1937–1939. In addition, he appeals to the Gospel as an authoritative precedent and brings the path of the main character, Mykola Matyazh, and through him the way of the whole Ukrainian people to the plight of Jesus Christ.
I. Bahrianyi addresses the topic of the Second World War and the situation of the Ukrainian people between the two largest military countries of that time: Germany and the USSR in play “Rozhrom”.
I. Bahrianyi consistently develops the myth of the crucified Ukraine in his drama. This myth is represented by Olga Urban, who expresses the aspirations of the whole Ukrainian people in the play “Rozhrom”. Significant death of the protagonist is perceived as a common victim of Ukrainians in a tragic historical crossroads: to restrain the two world’s greatest military attempts by their own blood. The artist demonstrates the power of his compatriots in an intellectual plane.
The carnivalized action as a mythological plot is revealed in the third play “Heneral” by I. Bahrianyi. The artistic world of the text is a special mythological system in which the playwright denounces and condemns the insidiousness, selfishness and collaboration of the soviet command, reinforcing the conflict of the text by comic means (irony, sarcasm, grotesque). The author functionally brings his play to masquerade, which is a part of the carnival, through the structure of the “inverted world”, series of travesty episodes.
All three plays by I. Bahrianyi are united by their mythologized world system and an identical image of the Ukrainian national hero. The genre form of the drama of the writer can be defined as a modern “life-martyr” of the Ukrainian sufferers.
Key words: social myth, socialist realism, anti-myth, Mystetskyi ukrainskyi rukh, emigration, Second World War, nativity scene, militarism, carnival.
