Litvynchuk T. Topos of the medieval city in Ukrainian prose of the second half of the twentieth century (Pavlo Zahrebelnyi, Raisa Ivanchenko, Petro Uhliarenko).

The thesis is the first attempt of a comprehensive study of the artistic reception of the topos of the medieval city as represented in the historical novels by P. Zahrebelnyi, R. Ivanchenko, P. Uhliarenko. The main approaches to solving the problemare the investigation of the author’s vision of the medieval urban society and the conception of the structural and semantic organization of a city. The thesis emphasizes the notions of «topos», «city» and «medieval city», according to which the artistic realization of the topos of the medieval city in the creative work of the named authors is analyzed. It investigates the specific character of the artistic reception of the paradigm of the medieval society in its projection onto the urban space, looking at the following aspects: the context of formation of the idea of statehood (sovereign and personal principles of realization of the princely conscience); the gradual penetration of Christianity into all social levels, its co-existence with paganism, the formation of its own religious tradition (the absorption and creative reinvention of the medieval idea of monkhood, the institute of church ministry), the formation of its own political, administrative and financial-economic system (the formation of social types, depriving the character of the need to claim historicity) of the city and state. The thesis also traces the absorption and creative reinvention of the culture of laughter through establishing the role of a fool in a medieval city.