The thesis outlines the peculiarities of the artistic historicism in the dramas written by H. Khotkevych. Research object comprises the following dramas: «Hard Times», «They», «At the Railway», «Village in 1905», «Of Igor`s Campaign», «Rohnid», «Dovbush» (in 5 scenes), «Dobush» (in 7 scenes), «Verkhovyntsi», tetralogy «Bohdan Khmelnytsky». The drama-chronicles «Prisoner Transport» was made public for the first time within this thesis; besides that, a range of literary, historical, philosophical and publicistic works of the writer was investigated. The thesis maintains an attempt to carry out a comprehensive analysis of dramatic and literary heritage of H. Khotkevych. In order to achieve the aim of the research the author worked with the collections of the State Historical Archives of Ukraine, located in Lviv City, where the biggest number of the writer`s works are stored in the archive, T.H. Shevchenko Institute of Literature (Department of Manuscripts and Textual Studies), Museum of Theatre, Music, and Cinematography of Ukraine, Department of Rare and Old Books of the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine.
The research based on these dramas gave an opportunity to form a comprehensive understanding of the historical dramas written by the writer; while due to working with the archives a range of philosophical and publicistic, as well as historical works of the writer were found out that contributed to deeper understanding of the artist`s worldview, in particular to determining his approaches in the context of philosophy of history.
The thesis highlights theoretical issues regarding the concept of «artistic historicism» and its transformation in the worldview and works of the writer. Research of the writings included taking into account the artist`s individual approach to the study of the epoch, his integral understanding of the period he wrote about, perception of the time and history as of a joint continuous process on one hand, and as of an efficient mechanism that changes constantly and sets pace on the other hand, as well as study of the epoch through the lens of the national consciousness a representative of which the writer was. A great deal of the thesis is dedicated to studying and specifying the meaning of the human values factor within the context of investigating historical figures.
Singled out here as well are main components through which artistic historicism was conveyed, which enabled investigating one of action catalysts – existential of fear, problems of historical myths and truth, role of lyrical origin, myth, folklore, reflection of the objective and the subjective in the writer`s worldview, psychologism, interpretation of historical characters and events, peculiarities of rendering ethno-cultural and ethno-national life of society.
Analysis of the texts resulted in singling out modernistic features in the drams written by H. Khotkevych, as well as specifying peculiarities of the style evolution that was confined to neo-romantic search for the role of a personality in the historical process.
Analyzed within the thesis is a personal tragedy of a leader who unwillingly becomes a hostage of historical circumstances («Dobush», «Bohdan Khmelnytsky», «Prisoner Transport»). Moreover, Hnat Khotkevych shows a shift of emphasis from the historical figures that make history to minor characters of which there are no entries in historical documents, nevertheless, their actions and deeds often played a crucial role and helped famous people adopt important decisions.
The writer used well-known motives from the history of Ukraine, however, they are modified under the influence of the author`s concept. Playing with texts (intermediality) was also investigated. The writer`s intertext includes a wide range of texts written by Ukrainian and world authors of all times, folklore, appeals to different art forms, mainly music, with all of this being masterfully implemented into the drama text and intensifying its ideological meaning.
Textual analysis has proved that dramatic heritage of Hnat Khotkevych efficiently represents evolution of Ukrainian literature of the beginning of the 20-th century providing evidence of the abundant literary process in the context of the world cultural development.
