THE PHENOMENON OF WRITTEN DIALECT TEXTS (NAIVE POETRY OF NORTHERN PODLACHIA)

Abstract

The article examines the issue of works of naive literature as written monuments of the dialect language. Based on the materials of the ethnolinguistic-dialectological expedition of 2005, nine poems of two authors from the vicinity of Bielsk Podlaski – Olha Onatsyk (born in 1921, Yagushtovo village) and Volodymyr Sosna (born in 1937, Pashkivshchyna village) – were introduced into scientific circulation and analyzed in linguistic and thematic terms. From a psychological point of view, the desire to write poetry arose among numerous naive poets of Northern Podlachia mainly because of the desire to fill a kind of lacuna associated with the functional limitation of the native language. In the case of such poets, usually retired peasants, the value of their works for humanitarian studies is determined not only by the representation of the peasant picture of the world, but also (or primarily) by the language itself. The archaic dialects used by them deserve the special attention as one of the most important parts of ethnoculture. The themes and stylistic means of the presented works confirm the researchers' conclusion that such poetry "stands between literature and folklore". The works of both amateur poets are presented according to manuscripts and parallel audio recording (author's reading) – this approach allows to avoid subjectivism when evaluating dialectal phenomena, primarily phonetic ones. Particular attention is paid to the unique dialect features in the manuscripts. The principles of publishing works of Podlachian naive literature written in Latin graphics are proposed: accurate transmission of manuscripts, parallel transliteration in Cyrillic, commenting on unclear lexemes (narrow-local dialectisms, borrowings). The importance of preserving the ethno-cultural heritage of the Ukrainians of Northern Podlachia is emphasized. Systematic research, the publication of ethnolinguistic descriptions, dialect texts and dictionaries will allow us to create a reliable picture of the current state of the dialects of the Buh and Narva interfluve, the last area where Ukrainians live compactly on the territory of Poland.