The dissertation is devoted to the study of the essence of neomythologism, its
peculiarities in Ukrainian literature of the late 20th – early 21st centuries and determining
the specific features of the neo-mythological worldview in Y. Vinnychuk’s prose.
The main characteristics of the myth are defined in the sections of the dissertation;
the main methods of its borrowing are considered. It has been found that the main
structural elements of mythological thinking include mythologeme and mythema. Taking
into account the immanent properties of mythologems, their own classification is
proposed: universal (understandable to everyone), ethnic (contain mental features of a
certain ethnic group) and author's (created by artists in the context of a certain literary
work).
The defining features of neomythologism and neomythological artistic style in
Ukrainian literature of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have been clarified, namely:
the interweaving of mythology and Ukrainian folklore; the combination of the fantastic
and the real, the destruction of the established mythological picture of the world;
construction of new myths and characters, playing with the reader, mystifications,
allusions, deep psychologism, using means of the comic.
Using as an example the collection of short stories by Y. Vinnychuk «Windows of
Frozen Time», the ideological and worldview preconditions for the development of the
author's neo-mythological worldview are characterized. The study of the early works of Y.
Vinnychuk made it possible to gain a deeper understanding of the author's individual style
and to trace the origins of neo-mythological features in the works. The literary analysis of
the artist's short prose contributed to the determination that the artistic modeling of the
main character's childhood years, dreams, thoughts, experiences, masterful reproduction of
images engraved in the memory, family customs and traditions in which Ukrainian
mythology comes to life, reveal the specificity of the neo-mythological worldview of the
writer, which is a component of his artistic reality.
In the story-tale «A Place for a Dragon» the features of the author's myth and the
transformation of the mythologeme of the dragon are traced, the main components of the
author's individual mythopoetics are outlined. It is determined that in this work the author
combines fairy tales, mythicism and deeply philosophical didactic subtext, uses wellknown
mythologemes from myths and creates a new myth about a dragon that seeks a
peaceful and happy life, writes poems and above all loves nature.
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The novels «Malva Landa» and «Tango of Death» are examined in detail, the main
neo-mythological images, motifs, mythologemes are determined, the chronotope, means of
enhancing neo-mythological dominants and poetic features of the works are defined. The
literary analysis of the novel «Malva Landa» contributed to the determination that the
originality of neo-mythological poetics consists in the contamination of various
mythological plots, images, symbols, mythologists and myths, in numerous mythological
allusions and reminiscences. Y. Vynnychuk transforms and deconstructs well-known
mythological plots, creates new modern images filled with deep symbolic meaning,
psychologism, irony and parody.
The novel's mythopoetic palette combines universal (roads, a labyrinth, libraries and
books, home, garden, death and sleep, primordial water, fire) and individual author
mythologemes (borscht and garbage). The author's mythologemes become full-fledged
symbolic images in the context of the novel, providing national characteristics of the
mythospace and supplementing the general mythological semantics of the work.
During the analysis of Y. Vinnychuk's novel «Tango of Death», it was found that
the leading neo-mythological motif of the work is the motif of the rebirth of the human
soul, implemented in the text at the symbolic-semantic, figurative-content and formal
levels. The main mythologemes are the mythologemes of life, death and resurrection. A
variation of the mythologeme of life is the market, depicted as a whole organism. The
mythologeme of death is presented in the novel in two images - as death-liberation and
death-destruction (bolsheviks and nazis). The mythologeme of the resurrection is
actualized in the context of the revival of memory and is related to the mythologemes of
the eagle, the magpie, and the apple tree.
In the analyzed novels, the writer’s parody-humorous style, which uses various
stylizations and mystifications, burlesque, outrage and parodies, grotesque, black humor,
playing with the reader, combines the techniques of popular and intellectual literature, is
explored.
