Alfred Nobel University Journal of Philology (Dec 2021)
EXISTENTIAL PARADIGM OF LYRICS BY MYKHAILO SYTNYK AND HANNA CHERIN (ARTISTIC AND BIOGRAPHICAL DISCOURSE)
Abstract
The article highlights the poetic legacy of the war and postwar years of Ukrainian artists Mykhailo Sytnyk and Hanna Cherin, united not only by the Muse but also, albeit for a short time, by marriage. The creative tandem of poets lasted until the end of the 1940s, in the 1950s their lives diverged in the United States, but there remained works that united artists in their common life and artistic destiny. The aim of the article is to comprehend the existential paradigm of the lyrics of M. Sytnyk and H. Cherin in the artistic and biographical discourse. Materials of scientific research, in particular the texts of some poems, have been published in Ukraine for the first time and make it possible to cover the littleknown pages of the life and work of M. Sytnyk and H. Cherin in the 1940s in Europe. The article is written with the maximum preservation of the cited materials, which are important historical and literary sources in the study of the biography and work of Ukrainian artists, the disclosure of their biographical and creative discourse. To achieve this goal, several methods were used – primarily from biographical with the study of authentic sources, cultural-historical, philological, intertextual to phenomenological and hermeneutic analysis, which allow distinguishing and analyzing artistic and biographical discourse in the lyrics of M. Sytnyk and H. Cherin to explore the existential paradigm of their poetry. Elements of conceptual analysis are also used, which allow considering the lyrics of poets through the prism of dominant concepts. The married life of artists and the reasons for their divorce can be reproduced only from fragments, i.e. from the words of their friends, acquaintances, in some mentions of researchers of their work and from the poetic lines of M. Sytnyk and H. Cherin, because none of them did not mention this period after the break. The post-war period in Europe was the time not only of romantic relations between artists, marriage, and the birth of a daughter but also of successful creative activity, joint speeches at conferences, literary evenings, and other events of the DP cultural and artistic community. While in Europe, poets published their works in numerous emigrant publications and separate collections of poetry in the 1940s, existential meditations), in which the dominant concept is the lost Motherland, which is realized in the lyrics of poets through the opposition of foreign – native land. The artistic discourse of poetry of the war and post-war periods of M. Sytnyk and H. Cherin is represented by personal, intimate lyrics; civic and patriotic lyrics (in wartime – the lyrics of heroism and rank), and existential-nostalgic, anteistic lyrics associated with the loss of the Motherland. The existential paradigm of the lyrics of Mykhailo Sytnyk and Hanna Cherin in the artistic and biographical discourse is determined primarily by the circumstances of their life and creative activity – the Second World War, the difficult postwar years, and the emigration factor, which for many Ukrainian artists was decisive not only in their lives but also in their work. The common destiny of the artists was connected by the poetry of the war and the first postwar years, which reflected at the artistic level not only the story of their love – its bright and dramatic sides, but also the existential circumstances of Ukrainians in exile.
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