PECULIARITIES OF IMAGE MODELING OF KYIVAN RUS PRINCES IN "THE LEGENDS OF THE OLD KYIV" BY NATALENA KOROLEVA

Abstract

The article focuses on the collection of texts "The Legends of the Old Kyiv", where Natalena Koroleva rethought the history of Kyivan Rus turning it into a metahistory and synthesizing the historical past of the Ukrainian people, myths and legends. The author also refers to the literary sources of her predecessors (especially to "The Tale of Bygone Years") forming a kind of intertextual space. The reader doesn’t deal with a documentary work but an artistic one with an original interpretation of events and their participants within three thematic groups (Scythian legends, legends of Kyivan Rus and legends related to the Kyiv-Pechersk Monastery). However, the last two legends fall out of context: about Samson's well in Kyiv and the birth of the Count Charles St. Germain, a friend of Voltaire ("Appearing Water", "Godson of Pope Ivan"). Modeling the images of prominent statesmen Natalena Koroleva only partially goes beyond the traditional vision, and also resorts to folklore stylization. Prominent figures of Prince Volodymyr and Princess Olha, Prince Yaroslav the Wise and his wife Iryna, Princes Askold and Mstyslav, son of Volodymyr Monomakh, Princess Lybid appear on the pages of the collection. The writer restores the European "face" of the Ukrainian nation intertwining different cultural codes including ancient Ukrainian and European ones. In the literary chronotope "The Legends of Old Kyiv", the adoption of Christianity becomes a point of bifurcation that opened up new opportunities for the Ukrainian medieval state. That is why a strong emphasis is placed on the stories of the Christianization of Rus, the construction of churches: the Christianization of Prince Volodymyr and Princess Olha ("Volodymyr's Silver", "Shynkarivna"), the idea to build St. Sophia's Cathedral by Prince Yaroslav the Wise ("The Curse of Perun"), the zealous struggle for the Christianization of Prince Askold and the construction of the Mykolaiv Church ("Askold's grave").