ABSTRACT
V. V. Nykonenko. The Image of the Father in Ukrainian Cinema: Peculiarities of Artistic Transformation. – On the rights of manuscript.
The thesis for the doctor of philosophy degree, speciality 021. – Audiovisual art and production. – Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary Theatre, Cinema and Television University, Kyiv, Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, 2024.
Relevance. The father archetype is one of the main elements of the collective unconscious. Already at the dawn of historical development, mankind assigned the following symbolic functions to the father figure: strength, power, wisdom, mentoring, and protection. At the same time, for centuries, the image of the father has remained a symbol of the cultural identity of peoples, as well as a figure that personifies the connection with the family and spiritual traditions.
The artistic image of the father has repeatedly been the subject of research in various humanities disciplines. Since the father figure concentrates social ideas about morality, authority, and blood ties, in art he often embodies a symbolic vertical of universal values. Accordingly, when certain social, political, or cultural reforms occur in society, they are most often reflected in art through changes in the interpretation of the nature of the father figure.
The father archetype also plays a prominent role in the Ukrainian national mentality, which is clearly seen in the works of our culture - mythology, folklore, literature, and cinema. Cinema, both as a mass art and as a kind of mirror of social processes, has carefully chronicled the transformation of the father's image in the collective consciousness of Ukrainian society: from the 1920s to the present.
Today, we have the opportunity to trace the cross-cutting development of the image of the father on the Ukrainian screen in different historical periods, to examine the dynamics of this process and to explore its logical sequence. In our opinion, the history of the theme of fatherhood in Ukrainian cinema remains insufficiently covered to this day. The need for a comprehensive study of the fatherly archetype in Ukrainian art seems particularly relevant: against the backdrop of escalating military aggression against Ukraine, the interpretation of the image of the father as a kind of personification of the spiritual, moral, and state values of the people is becoming more relevant.
The purpose of the study is to conceptualize the interpretations of the artistic image of the father on the Ukrainian film screen (from the 1920s to the present) with an eye to the social, political, and cultural realities of the country's history.
The scientific novelty of the study is characterized by the fact that it is the first systematic, phased theoretical and methodological study of the artistic image of the father in Ukrainian cinema (1920s - present) in the context of historical and political processes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, tracing the logic of the sequence of evolution of the father's image on the Ukrainian film screen with special attention to the socio-cultural factors that determined the conceptual changes in cinematic interpretations of the father's image in each period of Ukrainian history. The article clarifies the understanding of social and cultural factors that have shaped collective ideas about the father in the national memory of Ukrainians over a long historical period and modulated the functional characteristics of the artistic image of the father in the space of Ukrainian culture, as well as a set of scientific paths and theoretical foundations that allow for a broad and extensive study of the artistic image of the father in works of world art, and in Ukrainian cinema in particular.
Research results. The results obtained by the author represent a comprehensive interdisciplinary study of the peculiarities of artistic transformations of the image of the father in Ukrainian cinema, which includes an analysis of the theoretical and methodological basis of this problem and comprehends the main socio-cultural factors that influenced the conceptual characterization of the image of the father in cinema at different stages of the country's social and political life.
The first chapter focuses on the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study of the artistic image of the father. A comprehensive analysis of the religious and philosophical roots of the father archetype is carried out. Through a number of literary sources of ancient European culture (Hesiod's Theogony, retellings of ancient Greek myths, Homer's poems, Aristotle's treatises, biblical stories), the historical dynamics of the father's rooting in the status of a universal symbol of power, wisdom, mentoring, and memory of peoples in Eurocentric culture is traced.
