ANTI-TOTALITARIAN DISCOURSE OF IVAN BAHRIANYI'S EPISTOLARY

Abstract

The article makes an attempt to approach the analysis of certain samples of Ivan Bahrianyi's epistolary heritage in the anti-totalitarian context. This is facilitated by an understanding of the importance of the anti-imperial vector of Ukrainian literary studies and the need to highlight significant sources that strengthen the national code. We consider the artist's correspondence to be an integral part of his multifaceted work, which represents a consistent patriotic and humanistic position as the main worldview guidelines formed at the beginning of his career and confirmed by the criticism of the time. We draw attention to the importance of Bahrianyi's epistolary for understanding the aesthetic and socio-political views of the writer, who was in constant dialogue with his contemporaries about the cultural struggle of Ukraine and effective resistance to the totalitarian regime in exile.The study focuses on Ivan Bahrianyi's letters to such individuals as Dmytro Andrievsky, Rosaliya Vynnychenko, and Jerzy Giedroyc, as well as correspondence from Volodymyr Vynnychenko. First of all, we are considering these texts not to supplement biographical information about the writer, but to interpret the anti-totalitarian discourse of his legacy. The selected fragments of Bahrianyi's epistolary testify to a deep comprehension of the processes that took place in Ukraine and the emigrant environment, as well as to his exceptional anti-imperial and democratic position. The writer unequivocally speaks out against the Soviet Union, using expressive vocabulary: «meat grinder», «slavery», «terror», etc. Irony is also a significant means of assessing the situation, in particular in the desire to talk about the «Soviet “paradise”» and the title of the novel «The Garden of Gethsemane» as «Brother» to attract the attention of the French audience. These messages clearly outline the intention to conduct cultural resistance through intellectual confrontation and to increase awareness of the USSR among English and French speakers.