YEVHENIIA KONONENKO’S PROSE: TOPICS, IDEAS, GENRES, AND STYLE

Abstract

This paper falls under the category of literary portraits and explores the evolution of Kononenko as a writer and intellectual. She embarked on her creative journey with translation and poetry but later focused primarily on prose. The paper underscores Kononenko’s enduring commitment to liberal perspectives, her view of culture as both a primary social catalyst and a societal objective. Kononenko can boast the broadest spectrum of genres in Ukrainian literature, encompassing short stories, narratives, novels, miniatures, and essays. She often employs genre and generic syncretism, which is most evident in her integration of poetry into prose, where she incorporates sonnets and elegies within short prose collections. Furthermore, her works blend genres by combining elements of detective stories with social novels, feminist narratives, and intellectual explorations. The writer boldly experiments with genres to enhance the expressiveness of her writing and engage a wider readership with complex, intellectually profound works. Kononenko’s prose might be classified as intellectual literature. The themes and ideas explored by the author indicate an existentialist orientation in her work. Kononenko herself interprets all her plots and ‘small tragedies’ as reflections of the human experience. The paper highlights the stylistic features of Kononenko’s texts, emphasizing realism, psychologism, and a dialogic nature, along with the significant role of artistic detail, lyrical qualities, trusting intonation, and irony. As for the sources of the author’s inspiration, her works seem to align with Mykola Riabchuk’s prose standing out for its trustworthy tone and candid conversation with the reader. It is worth to emphasize that the writer once made a compelling choice to depart from her first tongue, Russian, in favor of the Ukrainian cultural minority of the late Ukrainian SSR and early Ukrainian state, thereby challenging the traditional orientation of Russian-speaking Ukrainians toward ‘high’ Russian culture.