THE IDEA OF ABSOLUTE HUMAN SELF-AFFIRMATION IN THE INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR MYTH OF IHOR KALYNETS

Abstract

The article considers the idea of absolute self-affirmation of a person as a key idea of the individual author myth of Ihor Kalynets – a landmark artist in the history of Ukrainian literature. The artist's search for ways and means of an individual's struggle with his transience and annihilation is traced. Kalynets’s artistic and philosophical concept is based on the idea of a person’s self-affirmation in eternity through love – a peaking phenomenon in the spiritual sphere of the individual. In this way, the poet uses a method of harmonizing relations with the surrounding world that is peculiar only to man. Love helps to overcome internal contradictions, achieve the integrity of the personality, and, most importantly, make it elusive to death, because there is a spiritual decentration, an expansion of the spiritual sphere of the Self. The ideal of all-consuming love in the individual author’s myth is God, whose image is understood in the direction of Christian theology. The artistic and philosophical concept of I. Kalynets is related to the concepts of Renaissance-era thinkers who considered the categories of “love” and “God” in an inextricable relationship. Marsilio Ficino claims that through love God reveals himself and through love his creations seek ways to approach him. Mykola Kuzanskiy believes that love for the Almighty gives rise to man’s love for the world. Kalуnets’ philosophical position also has a national background, consistent with the cordocentesis teachings of H. Skovoroda. Searching for the optimal method of connecting an individual with the world, the poet discovered the law of the power of love: the deeper and higher the love, the more powerful a person’s self-affirmation. Affirmation in eternity is not a self-sufficient goal, but a consequence arising from the artist’s altruistic philosophy. Kalynets comes to an idea that can be conventionally called altruistic anthropodecentrism. The poet proves the paradoxical dependence of the energy power of the anthropocenter (man) on the degree of its decentration: the more positive energy (love) the center radiates, the greater the power of its manifestation, and therefore the degree of affirmation.