The dissertation examines the problem of the national character as an aesthetic category in the works by the Ukrainian playwrights of the 1920s - early 1930s, viz. M.Kulish, I.Kocherha, O.Korniychuk, I.Mykytenko, Ya.Mamontov, Ya.Halan. Pioneering in present-day Literary Studies is the analysis of the Ukrainian mentality manifestations in dramatic, comic and tragic character-sketches, elucidation of characters' aesthetic nature, tracing of their historico-temporal determinism, research into close interrelationships between the national character and a genre nature of the dramatic work, its poetics; the process of developing the dramatic art is reflected here, too. The conclusion arrived at stresses that the 1920s - early 1930s witnessed an extremely topical and acutely dramatic nature of the national characters' formation, as the solution to the problem determined a preservation of the national and cultural identity of the Ukrainian drama, the latter losing its identity under the pressure of the Bolshevik ideology. The thing is that the national character as an aesthetic category is an image modelled in a piece of drama and possessing expressed ethnomental traits, inherent Weltanschauung model, historical memory, respective scale of values, unique world perception, genetic code, specific way of thinking-all of these formed with due regard to the uniqueness of the territory, language, everyday life, customs and traditions as affected by the economic and cultural development. A personage of the dramatic work embodies a relevant ethnogenetic type with the inherent feelings, will, mind manifesting the salient traits of the national character in conflicts and conflicting situations. This personage manifests his/her mentality in an essentially purposeful behaviour, following the genre specificity, by coexisting, common understanding, or clashing with other characters, defending his/her creed, determining his/her fate, implementing the potential particularly and individually within the dramatic art. Creating dramatic, comic or tragic character-sketches in the light of the aesthetic ideal, the author by necessity takes into consideration the life realia, basing the work of drama on them. The character-sketch is inevitably related to the notions of the beautiful, the elevated, the misshapen, the tragic, the comic etc. as taking a characteristic national colouring. By means of the artistic convention a playwright transforms majestic or misshapen reality phenomena into aesthetic events in accordance with the national character.
