Національні мотиви та міжкультурні зв’язки в художніх творах В. Короленка

Abstract

The article explores national motives (Ukrainian, Jewish, Yakut), which are found in the stories, essays and novels of V. Korolenko, and the problem of the intercultural communication that takes place in his works. Ukraine, namely the Volyn region, the second half of the XIX century, where the childhood of the future writer took place, is described in his works. Korolenko acquaints readers with the bright pages of its history, cultural traditions, customs, peculiarities of life, uses folklore sources, in particular, the heroic epic and mythology. The material for the analysis was the stories „Without a tongue”, „Children of the dungeon”, „The forest is noisy”. In particular, the story „Without a tongue” is full of characteristic ethnographic realities of Polissya village: Ukrainian houses under thatched roofs, features of religion due to the interaction of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, the specifics of the local dialect and even clothing. In the course of the study, the synthesis of Ukrainian, Polish and partly Jewish cultures, characteristic of this cultural and historical locus. Jewish motifs are widely represented: historical plots („Legends of Flora, Agrippa and Menachem, son of Yehuda”); cultural and religious identity of the Jewish people, language, clothing, characteristics of life, etc. (the story „The Mendel Brothers”; traditional holidays and elements of folklore (the image of Hapun in the story „Judgment Day (Yom Kippur”)). There are Yakut national motives: descriptions of the life of the local population, local traditions and customs, the specifics of religious ideas, which are a synthesis of Christianity and paganism (the story „Dream of Makar”) In V. Korolenko’s „Siberian stories”. The proposed exploration, with the selection and analysis of national motives in the most famous works of V. Korolenko, opens opportunities for further study of the writer’s work in this context, in particular, in the autobiographical novel „History of my contemporary”.