A comprehensive analysis of the genre-substantial peculiarities in the Ukrainian literary discourse outlined the metagenre trajectory of the mystery. In this dissertation, the author analyzed Ukrainian writers' most expressive and revealing artistic works in different cultural and historical periods. The investigation has revealed that intentions toward genre and cross-genre synthesis form the metagenre nature of the mystery.
Understood for the first time, the mystery genre's emergence, development, and structural-semantic transformations on the significant literary material and its transition to the level of a metagenre during the 17th–21st centuries are studied. Based on observations, ideological and thematic dominants have been revealed, as well as the figurative paradigm of the metagenre of mystery and the specificity of the plot decisions in the artistic works of Ukrainian writers. The study contributed to the actualization of the Ukrainian literary expanse оf hardly explored or completely unexplored literary texts, such as: "Pumpkin Mystery" by O. Devlad Zaporozhets, "Iconostasis of Ukraine" by Vіra Vovk, "Maidan Inferno, or Potoybich Hell" by Neda Nezhdanaia.
The first chapter of the dissertation uses and systematizes theoretical and methodological approaches of domestic and foreign literary experts, culturologists, folklorists, religionists, and philosophers to identify the peculiarities of the cultural-historical discourse of the mystery.
Tracing the theoretical aspects of the mystery as a phenomenon of ancient culture and medieval liturgical drama and the genetic links of ancient and medieval mystery summarizes the formation process of the mystery genre in Ukrainian literature. The involvement of many literary texts made it possible to formulate some author's definitions: a genre, a metagenre, a genre matrix, a mystery, and a mystery as a metagenre.
The concept of modifying the mystery genre, the formation of the mystery metagenre in connection with the culture of the epochs, the evolution of beliefs, the process of desacralization of religious genres, and changes in the worldview are formed and proven. The author traced the relationship between tradition and innovation during the transition of the mystery genre to the metagenre level.
In the section "Trends of the development of the mystery genre in Ukrainian literature," the peculiarities of the author's use of the mystery metagenre are analyzed based on conceptual works of Ukrainian literature for each era of Ukrainian literature works: "A word about the disturbance of hell" by an unknown author of the Baroque era, "The Great Cellar" by T. Shevchenko – the era of Romanticism, "Temptation" by Panas Myrny break the eras of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the actualization of realism and symbolism, "Mystery" by T. Osmachka – Modernism, "Pumpkin Mystery" by O. Devlad-Zaporozhets, "Iconostasis of Ukraine" by Vira Vovk, "Maidan inferno, or the Beyond of Hell" by Neda Nezhdana – Postmodernism.
Thanks to the works of art analyzed in the second chapter, it was possible to find that in the Ukrainian literature of the 17th–21st centuries, the metagenre intentions of mystery in works of various genres (drama, lyric, epic) and works of various genres (a poem, a dramatic poem, a novel, a drama). The transformation of the mystery into a metagenre occurred as a result of the strengthening of mythologizing with the dominance of specific worldview models, the creation of archetypal motifs and images, the reversal of the genre matrix of artistic works, the modeling of a kind of utopian space, or sometimes even a dystopian one. Mystery at the metagenre level made it possible to construct an intertextual field in which the authors managed to realize a dialogue with different temporal and various spatial planes or to revise worldview and spiritual directions.
The studied artistic texts revealed an organic connection of mystery with mythology, folklore, religious concepts, and phenomena of the sacred.
Tracing that, the reinforcement of metagenre intentions of mystery reveals the desire for the sacralization of artistic discourse, the tendency to use stylization techniques, and the recitation of archetypal images and plots.
In the third chapter, "Mystical and Mysterious in the Work of Lesya Ukrainka", the mysterious metagenre approach is applied to the work of Lesya Ukrainka for the first time. Based on lyrics and epistolary, aspects of the mysterious worldview inherent in the writer are outlined. The revelation of a mysterious matrix in many dramatic works concludes the current influence of mystery on Lesya Ukrainka's genre innovation, particularly in the drama extravaganza "Forest Song".
