Mykhaylo Kotsiubynskyi and Volodymyr Vynnychenko: Biographics of Creative “Landscapes”

Abstract

Creative worlds of Mykhaylo Kotsiubynskyi and Volodymyr Vynnychenko clearly describe the peculiarities of literary fin de siècle in Ukrainian literature of the period on the level of topics, images and style practices. Important role is devoted to characteristic features inherent to creative fates of the mentioned writers. They promoted creation of unique “rhythm” of prose characteristic of both writers and to a great degree similar to episodes and events of their lives.

Mykhaylo Kotsiubynskyi and Volodymyr Vynnychenko belonged to one cultural time “intercrossing” in space: real and artistic. If the writers’ biographies were objects of numerous literary discussions (e.g., authors’ stay in Italy on an island Capri or a period of “intermezzo” in Kononivka of Yevhen Chykalenko), then a peculiar “clashes” on the level of texts urges us to find ways to perceive these “intercrossings.” They are interwoven into the texture of texts and are not always provided for decoding. It becomes possible by reading the topology of artistic thinking that is revealed by means of artistic images, landscape, particular attention to corporeality. We come across the category of corporeality in both writers works, but a priori the category is marked by a given disconnection in their texts. As a result of the analysis, we state its prevailing quality, in particular, in creation of a whole “landscape” of writer’s creative work. The study of internal mimesis of Mykhaylo Kotsiubynskyi and Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s texts based on the basis of analytical anthropology allows us to trace peculiarities of biographics of creative „landscapes” in both authors, establishing the range of “rises” and “declines”, movement of their creative work as a whole. At the same time such an approach allows us to evaluate the character of cultural “landscape” of the Ukrainian literature at the beginning of the twentieth century.