Travel and Ukrainian Literary Modernism

Abstract

Indicating the marginalization of the concepts of travel and travel writing in Ukrainian literary criticism, I examine how travel as a social and cultural phenomenon in many ways shapes Ukrainian literary Modernism by introducing novel experiences and stimulating creativity and new literary endeavours. Starting with observations about the connection between travel and literature and presenting a general picture of European Modernism within this framework, I examine the Ukrainian context and focus on some major practitioners (Lesia Ukrainka, Mykhailo Kotsiubyns’kyi, Petro Karmans’kyi and Volodymyr Vynnychenko). I maintain that along with the ideological encroachment of European Modernism, real encounters with the European cultural milieu was a significant factor in defining these writers’ visions of the homeland and hostland and their choice of setting, themes, and character types.