Topos of the city in contemporary Ukrainian scholarship

Abstract

The article examines the history and current state of the study of the topos of the city in modern Ukrainian literary criticism (2000–2010s). The city and urban space entered Ukrainian literature relatively late (through the prose of I. Nechuy-Levitsky, P. Mirny, I. Franko, V. Vynnychenko). This happened under the influence of the industrialization of the state and society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but the “urban text” of Ukrainian culture continued to form throughout the last century. In the studies of Ukrainian scientists addressing urban topics, the main attention is paid to the opposition of urban and rustic discourses, studies of the topos of the city in certain literary directions, phenomena, works of specific writers, as well as the main national “urban texts” – Kyiv and Lviv, – their connections with the history of these cities and the development of various national literatures referring to these texts: Austrian, Polish, Jewish, Russian, Ukrainian. Research is underway on “texts” of other cities (Poltava, Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk / Dnepr), Odessa, Donetsk, Kharkov, etc.), including provincial towns that are an integral part of Ukrainian culture. A relatively small number of works are devoted to theoretical problems. The methodology for studying the topos of the city is, as a rule, based on a structuralist approach based on the achievements of the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school.