THE ARCHETYPICAL PRINCIPLE OF COINCIDENTIA OPPOSITORUM IN THE VISUAL POETRY OF THE «VURKAGANS» (1927) BY IVAN MYKITENKО

Abstract

The visual poetics of Ivan Mykitenko’s story “Vurkagans” (1927) is determined by the archetypal principle of coincidentia oppositorum, the secret of integrity, the paradoxical coexistence or fusion of opposites, the deep motivations of which, according to Mircea Eliade, “testify to nostalgia for a lost Paradise”. The religious scholar considers the intentional escape from the antagonistic tension of profane existence to the fullness of the sacrum as a through-andthrough motif that combines the most ancient world mythologies and folklore with modern works of art. At the same time, he emphasizes the permanence of Indian teaching, in which the reintegrated polarities, which become the guarantee of a higher reality, “absolute freedom, beyond good and evil”, are characteristic of meditative practices, yoga, and initial enlightenment. In the focus of this anthropological formula, the ambivalent meanings of narrative sculptures express the unconscious desire of their creator to rise above opposites. The three key statuettes, made in a boarding school, mental hospital and in a yard booth on Uyutnaya Street, respectively demonstrate the relativity of good and evil (“Mephistopheles”), the shaky line between genius and madness (“Laokoon”) and the grotesque of satiety (“Merchant Valiadi”). Therefore, in the article, the author aims to reveal the dramatic duality of the visualized figures. The visual poetics of the story is structured by Vrubel’s lines and Bosch’s implications. The eerie “fair of madness” set in a mental hospital, which the sculptor Alyosha sees after regaining consciousness, refers to Michel Foucault’s thesis about Hieronymus Bosch’s painting “The Ship of Fools” (1495–1500) as a prototype of the mental hospital. The archetypal principle of coincidentia oppositorum explains the simultaneous belonging of narrative sculptures to this world and the eternal. The symbolic “Mephistopheles”, the allegorical “Laokoon” and the grotesque “Merchant Valiadi”, recording the avant-garde effectiveness of literary and sculptural collaborations, demonstrate the organic connection of national art with European cultural discourse.