МИТЕЦЬ БЕЗ БАТЬКІВЩИНИ: ДО ПРОБЛЕМИ «КУЛЬТУРНОЇ БЕЗДОМНОСТІ»ДЖОЗЕФА КОНРАДА

Abstract

The article examines the problem of the writer’s national identity based on J. Conrad’s original works, memoirs of his contemporaries and critics who analyzed the works of the English classic writer in the following decades. The main attention is paid to the point of view that examines the figure of J. Conrad from the standpoint of multiculturalism, in particular the combination of Polish, British and Ukrainian (Polissia) components with interspersed elements of the cultures of Africa, the East and Latin America acquired in the course of life. Finding out which national and cultural paradigm was perceived by the writer as «Own» in the existential sense of the foundations of human existence, as well as which ethnic environment most recognized the writer as «Own», without feeling the cognitive dissonance of his creative pursuits with the national picture of the world, the authors come to the conclusion, that the multicultural identity of the British writer of Polish origin gave rise to an existential situation of «cultural homelessness»: compatriots (for example, Stefan Żeromski) could not forgive their countryman’s transition to another language and to another cultural and historical field, often considering this step as betrayal; representatives of British culture (Virginia Woolf, Bertrand Russell) did not hide the fact that, although Conrad writes in their language, his works remained incomprehensible to them because of the tragic pathos that is not peculiar to British literature; and Edward Said examined J. Conrad’s works in the context of colonial discourse, placing him on the same level as Rudyard Kipling, the greatest creator of imperial narratives. It is suggested that the closest to understanding the paradox of Conrad’s identity came Ukrainian émigré writers (Yevhen Malaniuk, Yurii Kosach), who were themselves exiles without the possibility of returning to their Motherland, and therefore understood the psychology and moods of the Polish writer abroad. They claimed that J. Conrad renounced the national features of his own culture in order to affirm universal human values.