The thesis is devoted to the study of "inner emigration" of artists in the conditions of totalitarian dictatorships. The definition of "inner emigration" is provided, political preconditions of its actualization and aspects of social and cultural representation are revealed. The phenomenon is considered in a wide historical and cultural field; the categories of "private" and "public sphere" are involved, the concept of a "buffer zone" of private-public relations is introduced. Creative reflection and spiritual searches of "inner emigrants" are interpreted as manifestations of the displacement activity. The article deals with the proto-concepts of "inner emigration", historical, political and epistemological prerequisites, the configuration of social and cultural representation and the main stages of its actualization. The thesis provides the analysis of "inner emigration" of artists in the period of Nazism in Germany, Fascism in Italy, Francoism in Spain and socialist dictatorship in the USSR. The exclusivity of the phenomenon of "inner emigration" in the period of "stagnation" is substantiated. The artists whose works did not meet the ideological requirements of the authorities and genre-stylistic canons of socialist realism could face the forced "inner emigration". The conscious choice in favor of "inner emigration" was in isolating the state from the ideologically hostile society, localization of artistic work in a private space in order to preserve creative individuality and free artistic expression. On the basis of the source base and the results obtained, the topological characteristics of "inner emigration" are formed, among them one should mention: actualization in the conditions of totalitarian dictatorships and localization of artistic practice in "buffer zones" (the so-called work "for the desk drawer") because of the ideological influence on the public sphere and the state control. It is proved that after the collapse of de-Stalinization and the beginning of the "stagnation" period the need to preserve personal boundaries arises as a manifestation of the instinct of artistic self-preservation. A peculiar way of resistance is the localization of creative and artistic searches in the private space and the formation of "buffer zones" of "inner emigration "("home exhibitions"," kitchens"), which turns into an important component of the ideology of the informal artistic community in its collective-communal and private-public implementations. The study of "inner emigration" in Ukraine in the period of the totalitarianism is carried out on the basis of life experience and visual creativity of O. Aksinin. His life and creative path testify to a distinct "inner emigration", conditioned by a principled position, the rejection of Soviet ideology, and the invention of an individual strategy of existence: distance from social and political life and concentration on artistic work. The constant research attention is focused on the topic of metalangauge - the cornerstone in the search of O. Aksinin. This aspect of his work is interpreted in different ways: from the creation of a "graphic Esperanto" to the development of an "individual language" that can be understood only by the author. In the context of an ideocratic system with its repressive ideological discourse, the desire for the invention of a metalangauge acquires humanistic connotations. The connection between "inner emigration" and the creative paradigm of the artist is traced. O. Aksinin's cognitive metagraphics function is not to report the conclusions: it induces an independent thinking in order to resolve internal dialogue and intellectual reflections. Constructive and destructive factors of "inner emigration" are defined. For artists, it provided for the prospects of preserving creative individuality, contributed to the evasion of ideological control. On the other hand, communicative deprivation and the lack of contact between the "inner emigrant" and the audience make it impossible to exchange experience and ideas. It is concluded that during the period of totalitarianism not only separate figures of culture and art were in the "inner emigration": a certain group of society coexists in this way with the regime. Among the negative consequences of "inner emigration" in post-totalitarian society is the historical amnesia and leveling of self-consciousness in the context of social processes and political events. The research is based on the scientific works of H. Arendt, W. Benjamin, R. Caillois, H. U. Gumbrecht, R. G. Collingwood, V. Yermolenko, O. Ivanova, O. Rogotchenko; literary and artistic developments of C. Zweig, P. Klee, K. Kollwitz, H. Hoch, K. Jaspers, G. Morandi, G. Miro, K. Zvirynsky etc. The personality and art of O. Aksinin are described based on research and the memories by I. Vvedensky, G. Vysheslavsky, O. Koshovy, V. Kryvulin,V. Onusajtys, V. Petrushenko, M. Sokolov; attracted by the ideas of L. Wittgenstein, M. Heidegger, M. Foucault.The leitmotif of the study of "inner emigration" corresponds to social and cultural issues and the focus of modern art, its consistency with our time and the problem of self-awareness in the context of human relations and actions.
