Ukrainian Traditional Circus in Today's Reality: Between Formation and Abasement

Abstract

The article is dedicated to modern Ukrainian circus art. Ukraine has a very powerful circus school, represented by highly professional specialists in all the leading genres of circus art. The problem of the traditional circus’s existence is actualized in the face of the challenges of modern society. The fact that a traditional circus is possible only if it contains the animal training genre is emphasized, i.e. use of animals in circus shows. The importance of analyzing the issue solely on the example of state stationary circuses (Ukraine has seven such organizations today) is emphasized, i.e. on the example of circus institutions that own buildings and conditions for animals standing, providing them with the necessary veterinary care, feeding and the necessary regime of keeping. The main challenges of our time are given that threaten the existence of animal training as a genre of circus art: COVID-2019, which made circus performances almost impossible as an element of mass entertainment events due to quarantine restrictions, the Russian-Ukrainian war, which destroys, among other things, the circus industry, the bill about the prohibition of the use of animals in circuses, which threatens the existence of the traditional circus as a whole. The debatable nature of the problem is emphasized, the presence of moral, ethical, legal and economic components of the issue is emphasized. Circus art nowadays can rightfully be considered one of the most advantageous components of the system of performing arts in Ukraine, despite the fact that it has quite a lot of controversial, debatable aspects. Even the classification of this phenomenon has always caused difficulties: whether to consider the circus a sport or an art, what is its place in the system of arts, whether to recognize circus science as an independent field of knowledge.