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Mythological, Religious, and Philosophical Topoi in the Prose of Valerii Shevchuk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Marko Pavlyshyn
Marko Pavlyshyn*
Affiliation:
Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, Monash University
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Extract

Liberalized cultural discussion in the Soviet Union after the Twenty-seventh Party Congress in 1985 was concerned in part with the nature of a literature that would be appropriate to the new ideals of openness and restructuring. In Ukraine, as elsewhere, the debate brought forth a list of imperatives that, without challenging the socialist realist principle that literature must serve overarching social and political goals, amounted to a formula for a new kind of literary engagement. Literature must “boldly intrude into contemporary reality,” it must defend the historical, cultural, linguistic, and ecological heritage and must unmask the crimes and abuses of the past and present. It must no longer be bland and inoffensive and must not avoid controversial issues or praise the status quo as a matter of course.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , Winter 1991 , pp. 905 - 913
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Inc. 1991

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References

1. “Enerhiia slova,” Literaturna Ukraina, 24 July 1986, no. 30 (4179), 1.

2. See, for example, Volodymyr Puhach, “Na pidstupakh do istyny. Iaka vona, suchasna ‘sil’s’ka’ proza?” Literaturna Ukraina, 31 July 1986, no. 31 (4180), 3.

3. See Ihor Dzeverin’s contribution to the first in the series of discussions entitled “Krytyka v chas perebudovy: bol’ovi tochky i zavdannia,” Literaturna Ukraina, 18 September 1986, no. 38 (4187), 3.

4. Equivocal approval was, until 1987, the standard critical attitude toward Shevchuk. In 1980, Hryhorii Shton’ saw Shevchuk as standing “at a distance from the main lines of development of Ukrainian prose” (“Maisterpsykholohichnoi svitlotini,” Zhovten’, 1980, no. 10, 126-130, 126). Mykhailo Naienko, reviewing Shevchuk’s Na poli smyrennomu, drew attention to “individual mistakes in the artistic realization of the principle of historicism” (“Na bystryni chasu,” Radians’ke literaturoznavstvo, 1983, no. 8, 31). Mykola Riabchuk wrote of the “obvious marginality” of Shevchuk, while conceding that his works are highly original (“Te, shcho vyvyshchuie liudynu,” Ukraina, no. 45, November 1984, 11). By 1988, however, Riabchuk was nominating Shevchuk for the Shevchenko Prize. Approval for contemporary relevance was first sounded by Hryhorii Klochek in “Hospodar u ‘lisi liudei,’” Literaturna Ukraina, 19 February 1987, no. 8 (4209), 3.

5. Loseff, Lev, On the Beneficence of Censorship: Aesopian Language in Modern Russian Literature (Munich: Sagner, 1984)Google Scholar.

6. The well-known thesis that Honoré de Balzac, his social and political conservatism notwithstanding, created novels in which the Marxist critic may identify an objectively “correct” and progressive reflection of the process of history, is most comprehensively developed in Lukács’s Balzac und der französische Realismus (Berlin: Aufbau, 1952), 25-45.

7. Veit, Walter, “Toposforschung. Ein Forschungsbericht” [1963], rep. in Toposforschung, ed. Baeumer, Max L. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973), 136–209 Google Scholar, and Bornscheuer, Lothar, Topik. Zur Struktur der gesellschaftlichen Einbildungskraft (Frankfurt a.M.: Shurkamp, 1976)Google Scholar.

8. Riabchuk, Ukraina, no. 45, November 1984, 11.

9. Oleksandr Onyshko, “Real’nisť khymernoho,” Vitchyzna, 1982, no. 11, 198. See also Riabchuk, Mykola, “Knyha dobra i zla za Valeriiem Shevchukom,” Vitchyzna, 1988, no. 2, 176–179.Google Scholar

10. For a description of this strategy of mystification see my article, “‘Dim na hori’ Valeriia Shevchuka,” Suchasnisť, 27 (1987), no. 11 (319), 32-33.

11. Try lystky za viknom (Kiev: Radians’kyi pys’mennyk, 1986), 27, 29 and 278 (benign); 24 and 269 (malign); 24; 269; 278. Dim na hori (Kiev: Radians’kyi pys’mennyk, 1986), 461.

12. Dim Na hori, 44.

13. “Barvy osinn’oho sadu,” dated 1964, in Sered tyzhnia (Kiev: Radians’kyi pys’mennyk, 1967, 12.

14. Naberezhna, 12. Seredokhrestia (Kiev: Molod’, 1968), 90; Try lystky za viknom, 186; “Vohnyshche,” in Dolyna dzherel (Kiev: Radians’kyi pysmennyk, 1981), 172 Google Scholar; Try lystky za viknom, 47, 265, 25, 29, 97, 281, 30, 33, and 158; Dim na hori, 188; Try lystky za viknom, 31; Dim na hori, 260 and 232; Try lystky za viknom, 54.

15. Eliade, Mircea, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 4th impression (London: Sheed and Ward, 1979), 372–373 Google Scholar.

16. Dolyna dzherel, 8; Dim na hori, 115. The moment of the cockcrow is, similarly, such an epiphanic moment: Krykpivnia na svitanku (Kiev: Molod’, 1979), 6.

17. Try lystky za viknom, 303, and the novella “Shvets’ “ in Dim na hori.

18. Try lystky za viknom, 303.

19. The novellas of the second half of Dim na hori contain night riders and witches and tempters appear throughout Na poli smyrennomu, Dnipro, 1982, no. 1, 70-112 and no. 2, 66-104. Pan Twardowski is in “Vid’ma” and “Syvi khmary,” Dim na hori, 279-291 and 292-308.

20. See my article, “National Idioms in Soviet Literature? The Case of the Ukrainian Whimsical Novel,” in Literature and National Cultures, ed. Edwards, Brian (Geelong: Deakin University Centre for Studies in Literary Education, 1988), 109–116 Google Scholar.

21. See “I metafory real’noho zhyttia,” the record of an interview conducted by Zhulyns’kyi, Mykola, in Zhulyns’kyi, Nablyzhennia (Kiev: Dnipro, 1986), 233 Google Scholar, and Shevchuk, Valerii, “Myslenne derevo,” Zhovten’, 1986, no. 10: 17–18.Google Scholar

22. Vyshens’kyi’s works were published in modern Ukrainian in 1986 in a translation by Shevchuk, : Ivan Vyshens’kyi, Tvory (Kiev: Dnipro, 1986)Google Scholar.

23. Dim na hori, 191, 354-378; Try lystky za viknom, 291; Na poli smyrennomu, Dnipro, 1982, no. 2:88.

24. Ivan the Goatherd is a reader of Skovoroda (Dim na hori, 26), while the most virtuous figure in Try lystky is called Mykola Platonovych Biliashivs’kyi; Try lystky za viknom, 18; journeys of education include that of Illia Turchynovs’kyi in Try lystky za viknom and of the boy in Dim na hori.

25. Try lystky za viknom, 28; Napoli smyrennomu, Dnipro, 1982, no. 2, 100.

26. “Postril,” Dolyna dzherel, 215.

27. Escape from the world is thematized in the first two narratives of Try lystky za viknom; virtuous action can be found in Na poli smyrennomu, Dnipro, 1982, no. 1, 75; Dim na hori, 240. See, for example, the opposition between the world outlooks of Kyriak Satanovs’kyi (creator of the notion of the “human forest”) and Illia Turchynovs’kyi in Try lystky za viknom.

28. See, however, “‘Dim na hori’ Valeriia Shevchuka,” Suchasnisť, 27, no. 11 (1987): 34–36.Google Scholar

29. See Veit, Walter, “Studien zur Geschichte des Topos der goldenen Zeit von der Antike bis zum 18. Jahrhundert” (Diss., University of Cologne, 1961)Google Scholar.

30. Dim na hori, 400.

31. Horkheimer, Max and Adorno, Theodor W., Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1969)Google Scholar.

32. Try lystky za viknom, 104.

33. Eliade, Patterns, 373.

34. An open debate on this issue characterized the period following the Twenty-Seventh Party Congress, when calls for the study, translation, and publication of early Ukrainian texts; for the preservation of historical monuments; and for the intensification of research into Ukrainian history became commonplace. See, for example, the speeches at the June 1987 plenum of the Writers’ Union of Ukraine as reported in Literaturna Ukraina, 9 July 1987.

35. Not unexpectedly, this feature of Na poli smyrennomu has attracted the attention of Soviet reviewers. See, for example, Novychenko, Leonid, “Pro roman Val. Shevchuka ‘Na poli symrennomu.’” Dnipro, 1982, no. 2, 104 Google Scholar, and Maidanchenko, Petro, “U tii boliuchii dobroti,” Zhovten’, 1983, no. 4, 127 Google Scholar.

36. Čyževs’kyj, Dmytro, A History of Ukrainian Literature: From the 11th to the End of the 19th Century, trans. Ferguson, Dolly, Gorsline, Doreen, and Petyk, Ulana; ed. Luckyj, George S. N. (Littleton, Colo.: Ukrainian Academic Press, 1975), 374 Google Scholar.

37. “U vichnomu zmahanni za istynu,” introduction, Try lystky za viknom, 5.