PRIVATE DEDICATIONS OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE OF THE 1920S–1930S: FROM GIFT TO SYMBOLIC CAPITAL

Abstract

In this article analyzes the changes in the structure and functions of private dedications and dedicatory titles in the literary field of the 1930s compared to the 1920s. The relevance of this research is due to the need to update methodological approaches to the study of dedications in Ukrainian literature, and besides, to deepen understanding of this paratextual element functioning in the works of Ukrainian writers of the 1920s–1930s. The object of study are the dedications and dedicatory titles found in the works of Ukrainian writers of the “Executed Renaissance” era.Comparing the development trends in Ukrainian literature in the 1920s–1930s, the direct influence of social and political processes on dedicatory formulas, motives and forms of dedication can be marked. The cultivation of collectivism, the priority of public over personal led to a decrease in the number of private dedications (from 104 in the LF of the 1920s to 68 in the LF of the 1930s). In the works of Ukrainian writers of the 1920s, private dedications were an emotional expression of friendliness, gratitude, love for parents, brothers, sisters, a wife, a beloved one, children, friends. Young amateur writers: Komsomol members and party members, former workers and peasants, being conscious repeaters of party instructions, joined the literature on the wave of the “draft of strikers” at the end of 1920s – early 1930s. This had a noticeable effect on the nature of dedications. In the works of young, ideologically engaged authors, family members become the dedication addressees only if they are active participants in “socialist building”. Private dedications of the 1930s are more emotionally restrained, laconic, sometimes contain an indication of the addressee’s status (e.g., “To brother Andrii, the Komsomolets”, “To brother Yurko, the Red Guard – I dedicate”).In the conditions of political “turbulence” and systematic persecution of dissidents, a dedication became a dangerous act, because no one was immune from accusations of disloyalty, anti-Soviet agitation, or espionage.A personal dedication could become proof of acquaintance with the “enemy of the nation” or a reason for false accusations, so the writers more often used unspecific and collective dedications, for example: “To a Friend”, “To a Comrade”, “To a woman – a citizen of the Socialist Motherland, to a woman-friend, to a woman-mother I dedicate this work with love”, “To Parents”, etc. In the literary field of the 1920s, private dedications can be interpreted as an example of gift, but in the 1930s in the works of the apologists of socialist realism they are transformed into “symbolic capital”, which can be converted into prizes, positions, titles, and material values.