Image of Lesia Ukrainka in the Modern Urban Cultural Space of Ukraine: On the Issue of Various Forms of Keeping the National Memory on the Way to European Integration

Abstract

This article is devoted to determining the key trends in visual “modernization” of the image of the renowned Ukrainian writer and poetess Lesia Ukrainka in the urban cultural space of twenty-first-century Ukraine as a state that is going along its way to European integration. The study examines the peculiarities of transformation of her iconic figure under the conditions of changing value paradigms which reflect the significant processes of renovation in the society’s art and ideology. The analysis conducted indicates that it is the visual methods of “modernizing” her image that reflect the emergence of several social trends oriented at the average Ukrainian of the new generation – one who, in search of the form of self-identification, is willing to connect aesthetic and axiological categories of the past with the demands of the present, to connect national identity with European identity. The transformation of Lesia Ukrainka’s image in urban culture is realized, on the one hand, by means of symbolization and sacralization, and, on the other hand, by means of kitsch, play, breaking the axiological hierarchy (de-iconization), fetishization, simulacrization, and others.