Starosta O. Volodymyr Samiilenko’s Poetic Universe

The thesis analyses the conceptual, thematic and problem, imaginative, and linguasymbolic levels in lyric and lyrical epic works by Volodymyr Samiilenko as a holistic poetic universe and dialectic artistic world model. The study relevance is due to the first attempt to apprehend the Volodymyr Samiilenko’s verses and poems as a holistic artistic system which integrates the various facets of his writing talent. The candidate’s personal contribution is also an effort to comprehend and conceptualize the artistic universe and poetic universe concepts by expanding the literary research tools. The first chapter “Theoretical and Methodological Principles of the Study” outlines the research discourse around the figure of Volodymyr Samiilenko and offers the candidate’s own approach to investigation in the selected analysis aspect. The author considers the concept of universe through the prism of philosophy as well as its interpretation peculiarities in the humanities, in particular literary studies. Thus, we propose our own view and consider the category universe as a system of dynamic interconnected elements, bonded on the micropoetics level: subject area (the universe of the author’s thoughts), worldview and aesthetic pursuits, and artistic concepts. The chapter examines and systematizes existing views on Volodymyr Samiilenko’s artistic worldview, outlines the research aspects relevant for investigating Volodymyr Samiilenko’s works, which are combined in the chosen systematic approach to the study. The second chapter “Volodymyr Samiilenko’s Poetry as a Reflection of the Ideological and Aesthetic Evolution of the Writer” is devoted to lyrical poetry that directly represents the model of the author’s sentient. The first section traces formation of the worldview and aesthetic foundations of writer’s poetic universe: great scale of thinking and philosophical generalizations and dominant humanistic principle which influenced the development of civic motives, the disclosure of socio-political issues, views on the artist’s role and the art function in life of nation and whole humanity. These features origin from Samiilenko’s unique worldview concept Bohokosmos that influenced different levels of his poetic universe. The second section of the second chapter considers the conceptosphere of Volodymyr Samiilenko’s lyric poetry which manifests the structure of his poetic world. Its system-creating element is defined as an image-concept. Analyzing artistic texts allows to identify the key images-signs in the different life domains: cosmic and interconnected natural; individual, being reflexed in the context of the universal, national, and art realm. The third section of the second chapter examines lyrics of Volodymyr Samiilenko in the genealogical aspect, identifies his contribution to the development of numerous genre forms, and emphasizes that determined work on their improvement was an important component of the poet’s creative laboratory. The third chapter “Satirical and Humoristic Dimension in the Artsist’s Poetic World” investigates into the origins, ideological and artistic features of Volodymyr Samiilenko’s satiric and humorous poetry. The first section traces the formation of the writer’s artistic method in this domain as well as increases insight about foreign literary sources which he used to develop his own poetic style, analyzes how Volodymyr Samiilenko’s satirical and humorous poetry integrated the foreign sources with Ukrainian literary and folklore traditions as well as which socio-historical factors directed the writer’s creative thought in the political satire field. The latter are closely considered in the second section which analyses the problematic and thematic level of Volodymyr Samiilenko’s satirical and humorous texts in the context of the emerging anti-colonial direction in the Ukrainian literature. The third chapter examines the formation of main satirical types in the Volodymyr Samiilenko’s works. The fourth chapter “The Artistic World of Volodymyr Samiilenko’s Lyrical Epic Works” is devoted to three lyrical epic texts which generic features allowed the writer to develop individual creative ideas. The first section examines the existential issues in the philosophical and dramatic poem Herostrat and its main character psychological portrait dialectics. We also analyze the satirical poem Sprytnyi Chenchyk based on V. Blasco Ibáñez’s At the Gates of Paradise. Here Volodymyr Samiilenko created an original grotesque picture. The second section examines the artistic world model in the philosophical poem Heya which represents a fully completed artistic interpretation of the author’s worldview concept Bohokosmos (Universal Unity), broad interpretation of global human problems, and great panorama of Ukraine under Bolshevik occupation.