VOLODYMYR VYNNYCHENKO’S PHILOSOPHICAL AND AESTHETIC VIEWS: THE EXPERIENCE OF FRENCH EXISTENTIAL

Abstract

The relevance of the proposed research is determined by the reviving the interest of modern literary studies of the figure of Volodymyr Vynnychenko, determining the place of his creativity in the context of European modernism, the ambiguity of assessments of this phenomenon in the context of Ukrainian fine literature. The article examines Volodymyr Vynnychenko’s novels in the discourse of French Existentialism. Attention is focused on outlining the similarities and differences between J.-P. Sartre, A. Camus and V. Vynnychenko’s worldviews and aesthetic views. The origins of the existentialist method in the work of the Ukrainian émigré writer and its inclusion in the discourse of French atheistic of Existentialism are also analysed, and some conclusions of the “Mougins” cycle of Vynnychenko’s works are investigated using summarized prospects for its study in a broad and its European context is also outlined. The authors examine the forms and methods of aesthetic refraction of the basic concepts of existentialism (absurdity, rebellion, freedom, choice, and relationships at the level “I – the Other”). The purpose of the work and the tasks involve analyzing the philosophical and artistic texts of Vynychenko in the discourse of French existentialism, as well as revealing the main philosophical ideas and functions of the novels of the Ukrainian writer, consistent with the creative guidelines of J.-P. Sartre and A. Camus. The set of goals determines the need for the use of hermeneutic (analysis of artistic texts), historical-literary, comparative-typological (posing and solving a number of literary problems in the context of equal national literature, and biographical (using diary entries) research methods. The problem is determining the place of ideology in the context of French existentialism and the “Mougins’” cycle of Vynnychenko’s works, was raised in literary studies as early as the 70s of the last century, in particular by diaspora researchers S. Naumovych and L. Zaleska-Onyshkevych, who tried to show the priority of Vynnychenko’s writing compared to Sartre and Camus. The problem of existentialism as a philosophical direction was considered in the late 1940s among the members of the Artistic Ukrainian Movement, attempting to formulate the concept of “Ukrainian existentialism”. The Ukrainian researcher Ya. Kotets includes diaspora representatives 70 years later in the article “The Formula of Ukrainian Existentialism” (2021). There are several Ukrainian and Soviet writers who produce some existential ideas and elements of existential interpretation of human life, but they should not be called conscious writers-existentialists. Among modern Ukrainian works need to name “Existentialist philosophy. Traditions and perspectives” by S. Raida (2009), as well as the comparative study “Ukrainian version of artistic existentialism: B.I. Antonych, V. Svidzinsky, T. Osmachka in the European context” (2020) by H. Tokman, where is introduced the concept of “artistic existentialism”. The critical optics of the research make it possible to combine the historical and philosophical specificity of the interwar twenty years and the post-war period, on which are built the works of Vynnychenko, Sartre and Camus. It is an attempt to show the originality of the philosophical and aesthetic views of the emigrant Vynnychenko in the paradigm of French existentialism, to demonstrate the similarity of the Ukrainian type of philosophizing (from Skovoroda, Franko, Lesya Ukrainka to Vynnychenko), to analyze his characteristic orientation towards a person who faces the eternal problems of life, death, and evil. Such non-scientific philosophizing gave birth to special genre forms: essay, aphorism, portrait, dialogue, drama, and novel, which can be found in V.Vynnychenko’s literary work. Vynnychenko belongs to those thinkers who went beyond the boundaries of traditional philosophy in order to comprehend the broader meaning of the entire spiritual culture, developing the ideas of A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche, A. Bergson, the theosophical theory of R. Steiner, in their writings. Vynnychenko set himself the goal of revealing prospects for further development to man, to give meaning to its existence, to point it to certain positive values, that is, to overcome the extremes of German and French existentialism and develop a positive philosophical platform.