Olha Demchuk. Imagopoetics of Vasyl Makhno’s Literary Works. – Manuscript of qualifying research paper.
Dissertation for attaining the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the specialty
035 – Philology (educational and scientific program – Philology), field of knowledge
03 – The Humanities. The National University of Ostroh Academy. Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, Ostroh, 2024.
The dissertation comprehensively analyzes the imagolocal thinking of the contemporary Ukrainian writer Vasyl Makhno, as well as the specific characteristics of imagopoetics found within the writer’s texts across various genres, including poetry, artistic prose, and essays. Makhno’s texts, characterized by a combination of local and global optics, testify to the presence of a worldview dichotomy in his artistic space. The research offers an interpretation of the author’s concept of national identity, in particular in a foreign cultural environment, characterize the peculiarities of shaping multicultural frontier zones in diachronic and synchronic aspects, emphasizes the oppositional imagological paradigm of own–other, taking into account a number of imagopositions presented in the author’s texts.
The focus on studying Vasyl Makhno’s works led to the adoption of imagological analysis as the primary method for this dissertation. The effectiveness of this approach was demonstrated through the interpretation of Makhno’s unique worldview. Additionally, cultural-historical, comparative-typological, geopoetic, contextual, intertextual, philosophical-anthropological, mythocritical, and other approaches have been employed for a systematic analysis of the images of own and other in Vasyl Makhno’s texts.
For the first time in Ukrainian literary studies, Vasyl Makhno’s significant multi-genre work is being examined as a holistic imagological paradigm. The main emphasis is on the delineation of the identity dimensions of the existential issues faced by a contemporary emigrant, the author’s vision of the borderland, the classification of the variety of auto- and heteroimages in the writer’s texts, as well as the deconstruction of stereotypes.
The second chapter is aimed at examining the poetics of own and other images in the poetic texts of Vasyl Makhno. The analysis includes the following collections: «Cornelia Street Cafe: New and Selected Poems» (2007), «Rover: Selected Poems and Essays 2011–2014» (2015), «Jerusalem Poems» (2016), «Paper Bridge» (2017), «Poet, Ocean, and Fish: Selected Poems (1993–2018)» (2018), «Single-sail House» (2021), selected poems from other Vasyl Makhno’s books. The dissertation justifies researcher’s stance on the controversial issue of the author’s ethnic identity, which has sparked debates among compatriots following the writer’s relocation from Ukraine to the USA in 2000.
The third chapter of the dissertation is devoted to the specifics of the functioning of auto- and heteroimages, the identification of imagopoetic modes, and the interpretation of the problem of groundlessness as an essential basis in the artistic prose of Vasyl Makhno, which includes the collection of short stories «House in Baiting Hollow» (2015) and the novel «Eternal Calendar» (2019). The thesis analyzes the peculiarities of reproducing the own and other images under the influence of the groundlessness complex using the example of the writer’s short prose, the motifs of existential homelessness. It has been determined that the reasons for the existential loss of the characters in the stories are geographical (change of residence, forced migration), social and domestic factors (loss of contact with relatives), and cultural and historical factors (redistribution of territories as a result of wars, etc.).
The fourth chapter delves into the core vectors of the imagological concept of Vasyl Makhno’s essay writing, traces the visions of auto- and heteroimages in the individual author’s worldview, and examines the specifics of his interpretation of intercultural communication and reflections on the problems of identity. It is proven that in the essay writing, the author unfolds a series of immediate personal impressions gained during encounters with other cultures, and in the endless exploration of the culture of own, employs specificity in explaining his thoughts and emotions, seeks apt labeling, and does not hesitate to engage interpretations.
The dissertation materials can be used during the preparation and development of the educational courses related to imagology and trends in contemporary Ukrainian literature; writing of coursework and qualification works, as well as scholarly publications pertaining to the issues of imagopoetics. Its findings enrich the comprehension Vasyl Makhno’s artistic profile.
Keywords: autobiographical, war, emigration, ethnocultural, identity, imagology, imagoposition, image, otherness, national worldview, memory, own-other, reminiscence, travelogue, frontier.
