“Quadro” by Borys Necherda and “Travel in a Sleeper” by Dmytro Zatonsky: thematic similarity and controversies

Abstract

The subject of the analysis is the forms of kinship that connect the novel “Quadro” by Borys Necherda and the novel “Travel in a Sleeper” by Dmytro Zatonskyi. The article offers a special study of these two works from the point of view of both the thematic proximity and poetic, and other, differences on the one hand, and tracing the distinct difference in the life and literary destinies of well-known authors on the other hand. The purpose of the study is to clarify the peculiarities of the authors’ interpretation of historical events and identity problems in the post-Soviet era. The relevance of the study is determined not only by the novelty of the approaches to the special comparative study of the content and form of both “Quadro” and “Travel in a Sleeper”, but also by the logic of the subject and the object of analysis and conclusions about the specifics of the development of national art during the years of Ukrainian Independence and modern times. Biographical, comparative, typological, and hermeneutic methods of text analysis serve as the methodological basis of the research, which makes it possible to competently study the commonalities and differences in the interpretation of two subversions of the thematic and poetic sections of the works by Dmytro Zatonskyi and Borys Necherda. As a result of the study, it was found that both works simulate the situation of a crisis of power and interpret the problems of the distortion of the human psyche in this decisive period, which is highlighted by the conflicts experienced by the characters. The texts of both writers are saturated with reminiscences and allusions to the reality of the beginning, middle and end of the 20th century and are clearly incorporated into the historical realities of its final stage. The distinctive qualities are that Necherda’s novel predicts the depicted event, and Zatonsky’s story emphasizes a historical analogy taken from the recent past of Nazi Germany. That is why D. Zatonsky’s prose gravitates towards the traditions of realistic writing with admixtures of phantasmagoric nature, and “Quadro” is a vivid example of a postmodern work in terms of its internal and external forms. The article provides a comparative description of the composition, techniques of psychologism, and stylistics. The topic has prospects for further fruitful development. For example, such comparisons as “Quadro” and “Ashes of Dreams” by Pavlo Zagrebelny, “Quadro” and “Stalinka” by Oles Ulyanenko, “Quadro” and “Stalker” by Andrey Tarkovsky, etc. deserve special attention.