Художня реконструкція етнообразу кримських татар в українській літературі раннього модернізму

Abstract

The article reviews the Crimean Tatar discourse in the Ukrainian literature of early modernism, in particular in the works of Lesya Ukrainka and M. Kotsiubynskyi. The literary texts analyzed in the study testify to the close attention to the ethnic image of the Crimean Tatars. The combination of the imagological method with elements of post-colonial criticism reveals the process of refuting stereotypes in literature. The era of modernism in Ukraine became a turning point in the literary vision of the Crimean Tatars’ world. Compared to previous literary periods, modernist writers vividly reveal Tatars’ identity in a panoramic way. The geopolitical context makes it possible to draw parallels between Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar cultures and summarize similar trajectories of national self-assertion. Both Ukrainian and Tatar peoples acutely felt the danger of assimilationist tendencies, which captured the social elite, and various aspects of the discriminatory strategy of internal politics within the Russian Empire. Lesya Ukrainka and M. Kotsiubynskyi immersed themselves in the authentic atmosphere of Tatar Crimea. Their literary texts vividly describe the attraction of the Crimean Tatar young leaders to the European culture. They considered it necessary to build a political nation within the boundaries of the ethnic group with the aim of self-realization as a subject of the historical process. Likewise, they strived for education to broaden social classes in their native language. Particular attention is paid to stories where Crimean Tatars try to find their own way to implement the ideas of gender equality. The writers revised the assessments of the Crimean Tatar imagological paradigm, which was previously based on simplification, ethnic primitivism, and rigid clichéd definitions of Muslim Tatars and their culture. The Ukrainian writers laid the foundation for the perception of Crimean Tatars without enmity senses and colonial prejudice.