Наратив вини в „Кассандрі” Лесі Українки

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the guilt narrative in Lesya Ukrainka’s “Cassandra” (1907). The purpose of the research is to trace how this narrative gets actualized and how it functions on different textual levels and from different optic standpoints: linguistic, mythological, social, and philosophical. The core principle of analysis is a holistic approach that makes a versatile, multi-level and multi-vector interpretation of the text possible, so, this is attracting it within a wider European cultural and philosophical context and changing the horizons for its interpretation. It is pointed out that guilt narrative is a through one, and it gets specific cultural contexts, intertextual connections, sense models and linguistic embodiments at each of the researched levels. Hence, it may be said that different aspects of this narrative are relatively autonomous and can be viewed as absolutely different and self-sufficient linguistic and semantic fields. The linguistic level of guilt brings you into the problem field of the spoken and unspeakable, a cognitive dissonance between the said/unsaid and perceived. The mythological aspect of guilt introduces the context of ancient (hence, all Western European) literature, shows the procedural nature of the mythological and literary image of Cassandra. The social aspect of guilt makes indubitable the antinomy of individual and social, victim and self-sacrifice, the problem of Other and Otherness, as the reverse side of self-identification. The philosophical dimension of guilt is disclosed in the background of re-interpreted myth phenomenon, anthropological dimension of mythological and literary connections. It is emphasized that the researched aspects complement and deepen each other at the same time. It is directing the through narrative of guilt from classical ancient literary interpretations of the myth about Cassandra towards the modern European re-interpretation of the very concept of the myth, from the ancient myth history to the universal human code. And Lesya Ukrainka’s “Cassandra” is not just exemplifying an attempt of making a literary search, the researcher’s and writer’s interest in the ancient materials, and also constitutes a way of personal myth manifestation and the search of Ukrainian national identity via the European context.