The thesis deals with the conceptual characteristics of the late poetic modernism and defines its role in the development of the Ukrainian literature of the XXth century. The views of the most authoritative researchers of the Ukrainian modernism and controversial questions of its scientific reception have been determined. The main "waves" in development of the Ukrainian modernism have been analysed; the peculiarity of the "late" poetic modernism has been described. The peculiarities of the world view and the aesthetic platform of the 1980-s poetic generation of the XXth century have been examined in the context of the transition cultural period. The creative works of the poets (Y. Andrukhovych, N. Bilotserkivets, Y. Buryak, V. Gerasymyuk, O. Zabuzhko, S. Koronenko, I. Malkovych, P. Midyanka and I. Rymaruk) have been analysed in the system of the late poetic modernism: a comparative analysis has been made regarding typologically similar motives and images with some representatives of the sixties, New York Group and the Kyiv School. The development of the late modernism in the Ukrainian poetry has been considered as a logical consequence of the opposition of the 1980-s generation to the obsolete cultural epoch. Various aspects of the archetypal image of the city have been examined; its role has been defined in the modern perception of the world. The investigation of the urbanistic motives has been made in the light of conceptions of the semiotics representatives (Y. Lotman, V. Toporov). Two types of the city have been embodied in the creative works of the 1980-s poetic generation: concentric (Y. Andrukhovych, N. Bilotserkivets and O. Zabuzhko) and eccentric (V. Gerasymyuk, I. Malkovych and I. Rymaruk). The most common artistic models have been analysed: "an alien city", "city-myth", "city-hell", "city- labyrinth", "city-mother" and so on. Aesthetic functions of the transformed methods of the literary theatricality have been defined in Y. Andrukhovych, O. Zabuzhko and I. Malkovych's creative works (carnivalisation of life, masking, parody, mystification, image system, commedia dell'arte, of the puppet show, absurd theatre and others). The theatricalized world-view of the 1980-s poetic generation has been analysed in the light of S. Averintsev, T. Apinyan, G. Grabovych, M. Bahtin and Y. Lotman's ideas. The modernistic type of the history interpretation has been examined on the basis of theoretic conceptions of the foreign (N. Berdyaev, M. Heidegger, T. de Chardin and K. Jaspers) and domestic (N. Kostomarov, D. Chizhevsky) scientists. The representatives of the late poetic generation have similar features of the historiosophical thinking: the tragism in the estimation of the history, the interpretation of the past in the light of the national idea, the irrational approach, mythologisation and symbolisation.
