“THE DAY OF WRATH” BY YURII KOSACH: MODERNIZATION OF THE HISTORICAL NOVEL

Abstract

The novel “The Day of Wrath” by Yurii Kosach is a modernist literary experiment, which reflected genre and stylistic searches of the late 1940s and the features of the individual creative and ideological evolution of the writer. The novel by Kosach attempts to question Polish and Russian imperial views on the events and the era of the Ukrainian Cossack Revolution, as well as to discard established social and religious concepts in favor of a national-cultural one.
 The novelty of Kosach’s literary technique in the novel lies, in particular, in the method of kaleidoscopic arrangement of material chosen by the author, the specific alternation of images and situations, the incorporation of cinematographic elements, and the utilization of the ‘stream of consciousness’ technique. There are elements of baroque, romantic, and expressionist poetics in the structure of Kosach’s novel, and it’s the syncretism of these stylistic trends that underlies the uniqueness of Kosach’s author’s style. His works are marked with ornamentality, complicated associativity, the motif of duality, and the special function of the metaphor. These features bring Kosach’s writings closer to baroque poetics. Kosach’s “Day of Wrath” is also connected with the tradition of the romantic historical novel through the use of typical romantic images, schemes, and situations, which the author attempts to modernize. The expressionistic stylistic tendencies are evident in “The Day of Wrath” at the linguistic level, characterized by fragmentary writing, elliptical sentences, and a deliberate violation of syntax. These tendencies also manifest themselves in the means and techniques used for image and form creation. The paper highlights the characteristics of Kosach’s ideological and literary interpretation of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi’s image. The hetman is portrayed as a historical figure, a "baroque man," and a statesman-demiurge. Yurii Kosach created a sample of the historical novel, resonating with his time and his own historical and literary views. In order to fulfil this task, he updated its content and form, making some changes in genre and narrative canons.