OLD UKRAINIAN MYTHOLOGY IN OLEH OLZHYCH’S LYRICS

Abstract

Ukrainian modernists, in particular Prague School poets, sought to actualize the old Ukrainian mythology in their writings and reinterpret it as a starting point for existence. Relying on the tradition of neoromanticism and neoclassicism, they created a unique style that reflected the experience of defeat in the national liberation war and emigration. This style was an attempt to form a new identity that would maintain continuity with the glorious past and meet the requirements of the time. The poets aimed to establish a new way of thinking that would influence the nation’s worldview, self-determination, and will to struggle. A scrupulous analysis of the elements from old Ukrainian mythology in Oleh Olzhych’s lyrics is crucial for a comprehensive interpretation of his texts. Oleh Olzhych’s poems are saturated with old Ukrainian mythological archetypes, images, and plots that have become a fundamental part of his literary model of the world. The published poems from his books “Pebble” (“Rin”, 1935), “Towers” (“Vezhi”, 1940), and “Pidzamcha” (1946), as well as works beyond these collections, have been analyzed with the use of mythocritical method. Mythologemes, being minimal semantic units of text referring to myths, are typically positioned prominently within the texts.
 The relevant archetypes and images in Oleh Olzhych’s lyrics include the Great Mother, the World Tree, a complex of solar imagery, mediators, and direct references to the gods and creatures of old Ukrainian myths. The old Ukrainian mythology in Oleh Olzhych’s poems accumulates ontological, existential, and value knowledge, appealing to the collective unconscious and being one of the formative components of his worldview.