“BAROQUE” AND “GOTHIC” IN THE LITERARY CONCEPT OF YEVHEN MALANIUK

Abstract

The article examines the semantic codes and functioning of the concepts “baroque” and “gothic” in the literary and cultural works of Yevgeny Malanyuk. It is clarified how these concepts correlate with such concepts of his literary system as tragic, heroic, high and low in style. The semantic connection of the terms “baroque” and “gothic” with the Dionysian and Apollonian beginnings of creativity has been established. In cultural discourse, these concepts are the antithesis, but for Yevgeny Malanyuk, these concepts describe interconnected spiritual and cultural phenomena and events. The researcher interpreted baroque as a stylistic direction of art and literature of the Cossack era. The author considers the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, brotherhoods and Cossack architecture to be the phenomena of this time. These phenomena were united by a common feature: they were sprouts of national culture, they were a manifestation of the urge to self-identity of Ukrainians, to create their own national cultural portrait. Baroque in the works of the essayist is defined as the process of formation of national identity, an unfinished striving for cultural self-determination, a search for a balance between elitist and democratic. The baroque beginning of creativity is revealed in the desire of artists to combine the heroic and the beautiful. In a stylistic manner, this phenomenon appears in the Dionysian beginning of creativity. Gothic in Yevhen Malaniuk's cultural concept is the result of the national self-determination of the individual and the nation. At the worldview and spiritual level, Gothic is manifested in the statesman's thinking and instinct. Yevgeny Malanyuk associates Gothic with chivalry and military service, and in his artistic work with the cult of the heroic and tragic, the priority of reason and will over emotion. Such was the creativity of Yuriy Klen and Oleg Olzhych. In the system of aesthetic markers, Gothic in creativity corresponds to the Apollonian type of creativity. Yevgeny Malaniuk's Baroque and Gothic theory relates to the concepts of “statehood”, “state thinking”, “political consciousness”. They demonstrate different stages of manifestation of this quality of thinking and inner culture of the artist. Baroque is an intuitive, unconscious statecraft awakened at the level of instincts. Gothic as a quality of the writer's individual style is closely related to the concept of “statehood”, “spiritual sovereignty”, “faith”, “messianicism” and “will”.