Petrenko-Tseunova, O. Narrative identity of Kyiv in Ukrainian Baroque literature. – Qualification research work (manuscript).
Dissertation to obtain the scientific degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the field 03 “Humanities”, speciality 035 " Philology”. – National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, 2023.
The broad objective of this study is to identify and analyze the narrative identity of Kyiv in Ukrainian Baroque literature. It has been argued that this mental construction is reflected in a number of Baroque genres, in particular in polemical texts, chronicles, poetry, and school drama. Under certain conditions, the worldview of the early modern epoch assumed the presence of a transcendental meaning in the creation of narratives. Such linkage formation facilitates maintaining their integrity, despite the differences in languages, confessions, genres, and aesthetic paradigms. This study therefore arises out of concerns to understand how the depiction of urban space in fiction forms a separate reality that exists according to its own rules, depending on the style of the period and the genre of the text. An overview of the main approaches to the study of the urban narrative and its role in the formation of national identity allows us to conclude that the theory of place identity was earlier used in research as a heuristic starting point, rather than as a theoretical basis. The purpose of this study was outlined as follows: to understand what are the main ways of modelling the image of Kyiv through the narrative projection of the texts of the Baroque period, and to analyze the functioning of the Baroque identity of Kyiv on teleological and poetical levels. The methodological framework of the study consists of: the phenomenological method – used to analyze the city as a symbolic reality; comparative historical method – considering the dynamics of changes in the image of the city; hermeneutics – for the analysis and interpretation of prominent philosophical theories related to the symbolization of the city. Structural semiotics are used to examine the urban narrative of Baroque Kyiv as a system of counterparts and oppositions, to identify central elements (plots, motifs, and images), and analyze their implementation in specific texts. New historicism, the concepts of heritage, cultural memory, the invention of tradition, and post-colonial approach are used to investigate the city as a mechanism of memory. Myth criticism is adopted for the analysis of the metamythology of the urban narrative. The scientific novelty of the thesis is determined by the application of the concept of narrative identity to Ukrainian Baroque literature for the first time. The comparative analysis done shows the role of the narrative identity of Kyiv in Baroque culture. The main features of the Kyiv’s narrative are characterized and summarized in the context of synchronous narratives of the early modern period. The peculiarity of the work is based on the integration of cultural and anthropological methods of researching narratives of memory, loci of symbolic meaning-making, and mythological analysis of texts. The findings were obtained by the application of the selected theoretical and methodological base to pieces of Ukrainian literature of the 17th–18th centuries. Implementation of modern research methods expanded the boundaries of the interpretive field of Ukrainian Baroque literature. The results, therefore, begged for the expediency of using the narrative identity studio for early modern texts. This showed the intentions and the manner in which different artistic doctrines and political regimes created, changed, and influenced the physical and symbolic appearance of the city in the Baroque period. Examination of it proved the structuring role of the city in the Baroque semiosphere. The first chapter, “The image of the Baroque city: theoretical, historical, and cultural contexts”, defines the romantic, positivist, modern, and contemporary styles of thinking. In the second chapter, “Construction of the poetic model of the city”, determinants of narrative identity occurrence were examined using four different contexts of perception of the image of the city in Baroque culture: philosophical, axiological, poetic, and linguistic. The third chapter, “The city as a mechanism of memory”, discusses how a range of political, economic, social, and cultural concepts are encoded in the urban landscape considered as a system of signs. The fourth chapter, “Metamythology of Baroque Kyiv”, gives the author’s interpretation of the main concepts of the narrative identity of the city through the prism of myth critics.
Key words: Ukrainian literature, Baroque, narrative, identity, poetics, motif, Kyiv, city, reception, mythologizing, intertextuality, space, heritage, cultural memory, ideology.
