Утопія С. Подолинського та її відгомін в українській літературі

Abstract

The article deals with the connections between S. Podolynsky and Ukrainian literature, namely his artistic, educational and non-fiction works, scientific studies that testify to the philosophical principles of that era, create an additional explanatory context for the literary process, and the influence of the scientist's ideas on art literature. The object of study was mainly the texts of the thinker, such as “Steam machine” and “Human work and its relation to the distribution of energy.” The relevance of the study is seen in the need for a comprehensive understanding of the so-called populism, which in its individual samples went beyond provinciality and intellectual limitations, attesting to the art of the next era. The defining feature is the cultural and historical method established in Ukrainian literary studies. The novelty of intelligence is to shift the focus to little-known figures and marginal genres of Ukrainian literature. Interest in the figure of S. Podolynsky, what grew over time in a separate direction of research, dates back to the periods of national revival in the 20th century. Historians and economists wrote the most about him. However, physicians, physicists, biogeochemists, ecologists from Ukraine and abroad have gradually joined. The grows of the number of researchers and, in particular, the diversification of the subject of research with the involvement of all new areas of science is evidenced by the underestimated true scale of the personality of the Ukrainian thinker over the decades. We consider it necessary to focus, firstly, the genre specificity of the work “Steam machine” in the context of that day attracts attention, secondly, on the search for the echo of the ideas of this scientist in Ukrainian literature of the 19th and the first third of the 20th century. It is argued that the ideas of S. Podolynsky, in particular the autotrophy of mankind, as well as compositional and genre innovations could have influenced on the formation of scientific and social science fiction in Ukrainian literature. From our point of view, the proposed problem has the prospect of further elaboration, in particular the hypothesis about the connection between the futurological forecasts of S. Podolynsky and the ideological and artistic content of the short story by Panas Myrny “Dream” and V. Vynnychenko’s novel “Sun Machine”.