Information on the thesis

Between the 19^th and 20^th centuries the criticism of language became more
and more pronounced. Due to a number of reasons, the issues of the unspoken, of
limitations and even harmfulness of the language becomes one of the central ones.
Poetry is characterized by a special sensitivity to these processes.
For Ukrainian literature of the 20^th century, the experience of silence was not
only a poetic metaphor, but also a very real political situation. In Ukrainian poetry
of the second half of the 20^th century, there are many interesting poets, groups and
phenomena, all united by one time period and a common colonized culture. The
author explores these questions in depth for one poet, tracing connection of his
works with the state, culture and the literary context. Intellectualism, cultural
references and hermetic poetic world are common for the Ukrainian poets of the
second half of the 20^th century, and they are especially pronounced in the poetry of
Hryhoriy Chubai.
Hryhoriy Chubai’s writing compels the reader to consider the conflictarising
from a totalitarian state in opposition to individuality. His poetry also uncovers the
role of silence in this confrontation and in the creation of poet’s own unique voice.
The first chapter of the thesis, “The (Non)Speaking Creature”, contains
historical and theoretical description of the problem of silence. It consists of two
subchapters. The first part, “Silence in Religious and Philosophical Traditions”,
analyzes the ideas of silence, taboo, as well as the interaction of logos and silence
in Greek, Christian, and Oriental cultures. The second part, “Features of Silence in
the Modernism and Postmodernism” compares interpretations of silence in the era
of modernism and postmodernism. The different approaches offered by
hermeneutics, psychoanalytic school, and linguistics are highlighted as well.
In the second chapter, “Silence and Totalitarianism”, the author examines the
communicative and ontological aspects of silence in poetry in terms of its
interaction with the pressure of totalitarian power. The subchapter “Forced
Silence” highlights the reaction of poets to prohibition, censorship and restrictions
on creativity. Silence acts as a betrayal, a manifestation of weakness, fear, and
defeat.
The subchapter “Silence and/or Trauma” deals with the psychological aspects
of forced silence, silence as a reaction to traumatic totalitarian pressure.
The subchapter “Silence as an Act” covers the gesture of abandoning the
language as the conscious choice of the artist. This gesture indicates the state of
deformation of language, loss of meaning as a result of propaganda, distortion and
lies. Post-colonial and post-totalitarian analysis was also applied in this subchapter.
In the subchapter “Real and Ideal Spaces of Silence” the author looks closely
at standard spaces in the works of Hryhoriy Chubai and analyzes them as spaces
for encountering silence. Those spaces are the following: the space of the house, of
the nature and of the city. The image of the desert city in Chubai’sworks is also
compared to the T.S. Elliot’s wasteland.
In the third chapter, “Silence and Truth”, silence is analyzed as an ontological
experience. In the first part, “Musical Poetry of Hryhoriy Chubai”, the connection
between unspeakable and music is considered. In the second subchapter, “Night of
Silence”, the author considers the images of darkness and silence, and analyzes the
role of darkness in the spiritual life of the poet. In the last part, “Death and
Resurrection”, the poem “The Search of the Accomplice” is analyzed as the myth
of the dying and resurrecting hero. With the insights from C. G. Jung and
M. Eliade, the author demonstrates that the “The Search of the Accomplice” is a
narration about path through weakness, separation from one’s own soul and from
feminine part of the soul, and eventually through darkness and death. The
acceptation of darkness, silence and mortality is what allows the poet to become a
listener and only then a speaker of the unknown words.
Keywords: silence, trauma, unspeakable, archetype, forced silence, silence as an
act, anima, Ukrainian poetry of the second half of the twentieth century, Hryhoriy
Chubai