“Phenomenon of dual face”: Yurii Kosach at intersection of myth and ideology

Abstract

The paper offers an analysis of Yurii Kosach’s literary heritage in the context of the Ukrainian literary process of the 20th century. The main subject is biographical, ideological, aesthetic, and ethical factors that influenced the formation of the writer’s self-identity. Special attention is paid to the ambivalence of Kosach’s worldview, the duality of his status, which was reflected in his literary self-representation.
 The views of Yurii Kosach on the historical role, cultural and social aims of the emigrants have been clarified. The paper discusses the history of the conflict between Yurii Kosach and the circle of the post-war Ukrainian emigrants, the theme of Kosach’s collaboration with Soviet totalitarian political and literary environments. Yurii Kosach’s engagement in the Soviet literary process is considered in the context of myth about Faust and Mephistopheles, which serves as a political metaphor covering the entire totalitarian history of Ukrainian literature and culture. The writer’s split between various totalitarian ideologies is considered as one of the symbolic plots of his time and interpreted psychologically.
 One of the main plots in Kosach’s prose, realized in his various works, is a symbolic meeting of Ukraine and Europe. The paper considers his understanding of Europeanism, the crisis of Ukrainian literature, the problem of the writer’s self-sufficiency, etc. Such issues as mythological thinking of Yurii Kosach, the influence of the neo-baroque and neo-romantic traditions on his work, the appeal to Panteleimon Kulish’s idea of Ukrainian Europe, the writer’s participation in the ideological discussion about the national and cultural identity of Mykola Gogol have been outlined as well.
 The author of the paper marks out Yurii Kosach’s critical heritage of the Art Ukrainian Movement period and issues of ideological, aesthetic, and stylistic modernization of Ukrainian literature, which have been considered in the context of ideological discussions and philosophical searches of his contemporaries.