Information on the thesis

The dissertation researches the belletristic legacy of A. Krymsky as a significant
experimental phenomenon of modernizing the Ukrainian literary tradition.
A pioneering study, it comprehends, in a systematic, overall and multi-faceted way,
an evolution of the literary-critical thought on the author’s literary-artistic works
from the historiographical-receptive and contactological perspectives, topicalizes
the issue of literary-artistic intellectualism, analyses the novel Andrii Lahovs’kyi
in the context of Ukrainian literary-artistic prose (second half of the 19th– early 20thcc.) dealing with the life of the intelligentsia, highlights the nature of creative
autobiographism as autopsychological intellectualism, as well as the specificity
of literary characters’ moulding.
Chapter One refutes the thesis about the vacuum of research interest and presents
three stages of reception: 1) time of the readers’ active interest and literary-critical
comprehension (1890–1920s); 2) period of prescribed silencing and gradual
rehabilitation in sub-Soviet Ukraine, attempts at comprehending in Western Ukraine
and the diaspora (1930– the 1980s); 3) the latest stage of theoretical and literary-
historical multi-faceted study by means of a biographical, aesthetic-literary, oriental,
descriptive-discursive, psychoanalytical, structural-semiotic, national-philosophical set
of tools in methodology. At different stages, researchers traced and articulated notable
features of A. Krymsky’s work: spiritual split and uncertainty in one’s own creative
ability; subjectivism; introduction to the literary circulation of a neurasthenic character
(“psychopath”, “hysteric”); spiritual kinship of the characters and
their autobiographicity; a combination of elements of traditional, realistic,
and modernist poetics; controversial complexity of a psychophysiological portrayal
of characters; an unusual symbiosis of scholar and writer in one person, variety
of creative incarnations of A. Krymsky, etc. As a result of analysing the dialogue
between I. Franko and A. Krymsky in the perspective of mutual comprehending,
the following has been clarified: I. Franko tried to dispel A. Krymsky’s insecurity
in his talent as a writer, encouraging him to live a full spiritual life, make no haste
about hiding in the purely philological science; presented A. Krymsky as a universal
creative individuality; within the context of new (modernist) literary trends
and techniques, he believed that the artistic work of A. Krymsky may have been
somewhat inferior to the aesthetic level of other contemporary authors, but had
a unique charm, particularly in terms of problem-thematic innovation, extravagance
of characters, textual expression of the unique author’s personality. Also, A. Krymsky
gave prime samples in a systematic description of the life and works of the genius
contemporary, often topicalizing themes and issues spiritually close to him as well
(upbringing, complex intergenerational relations). M. Rudnytskyi constructed
A. Krymsky’s vision as a writer in the parameters of the aesthetic paradox:
an extraordinary scholar and an “occasional artist”, which allegedly led
to the limitations of his artistic world (introduction of psychopathic personages with
upset nerves, neurastheniac persons, whereby he “preceded” the first attempts
of Ukrainian Modernism; the short stories and short novels are devoid of composition
and finished plot; the novel Andriy Lahovs’kyi attracts attention by “unsophisticated
sensuality”; the scholar struggling with the writer is felt everywhere, etc.).
Chapter Two topicalizes the issue of artistic intellectualism to refute the traditional
dichotomy of literary “Populism” and Modernism in the coordinates of their
polarization, which has become a core in the literary studies of Ukrainian Modernism
of the recent decades. The novel Andriy Lahovs’kyi is analyzed against the background of the landmark texts in Ukrainian literature of the second half of the 19 th– early 20th
cc. about the life of educated heroes, intellectuals as a tradition of forming
the Ukrainian intellectual prose.
Chapter Three highlights the issue of autobiographicity in the writer’s work
(not as a simplified naturalistic reconstruction of the author’s biographic elements but
a super-complex system of masks and reflections, autopsychological intellectualism,
in which both artistic fiction and psychophysiologically motivated, in a detailed way
intellectualized autobiographic substratum of the writer’s “encyclopedia” of soul
organically coexist, inclusion of the intertext, academic commentaries, polemic
associations, phantom “voices”; retrospective and prospective visions, etc.). It outlines
the specifics of conceptualizing the artistic character-moulding in A. Krymsky’s fiction
clearly oriented towards experimentation with imagery and the narrative.
Keywords: Literary prose, belles lettres, novel, novelettes, reception, Modernism,
experimental prose, intelligentsia, intellectualism, autobiographicity,
autopsychologism, character.