The Image of the Author in Taras Shevchenko’s Diary and Stories: The Evolution of Understanding Cover Image

Образ автора у щоденнику та повістях Тараса Шевченка: еволюція розуміння
The Image of the Author in Taras Shevchenko’s Diary and Stories: The Evolution of Understanding

Author(s): Vasyl Pakharenko
Subject(s): Ukrainian Literature, Sociology of Culture, Theory of Literature, Asylum, Refugees, Migration as Policy-fields
Published by: Wydział Lingwistyki Stosowanej Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Taras Shevchenko; Taras Shevchenko’s prose; Shevchenko studies; author’s image; author’s mask; colonialism; carnival worldview; romanticism; classicism;

Summary/Abstract: In his article, Vasyl Pakharenko explores the logic of deepening literary interpretations of Taras Shevchenko’s image in the prose of the artist and discovers the differences of this image in poetry and prose. If the lyrical hero of the poetic texts demonstrates a determined, uncompromising nationalism, then the narrator in the diary and short stories is rather a territorial patriot. And yet, he thinks of himself as located in the socio-cultural space of the Russian Empire, expresses critical views on the Koliivshchina, resorts to the Russian language, emphasizes Enlightenment values, and demonstrates the masculine type of writing. All this testifies to the deviation from the romantic to the previous, classicist, tradition. That type of prose refinement is caused by the forced compromise of the artist with the empire in the conditions of brutal terror during the exile. There are several interpretations of such a position of an author in literary studies: Shevchenko’s diplomatic attempt to re-educate liberal Russian and Ukrainian intelligentsia (P. Zaitsev), psychological dualism of the “adapted” and “unadapted” personalities of the writer (G. Grabovich), distinctive forms of expression of the holistic image of the author (V. Smilyancka). Each of these positions has its own logic, but is characterized by a certain one-sidedness. The nature of Shevchenko’s compromise becomes clear if we take into account the peculiarities of carnival tactics of the spiritual survival of the artist in the conditions of the world. This is a creation of a kind of author’s mask, a game with stereotypes of the dominant culture and public consciousness.

  • Issue Year: 2020
  • Issue No: 7
  • Page Range: 38-58
  • Page Count: 21
  • Language: Ukrainian