Literary Contacts Research Articles

THE ZAGREB BUSINESS TRIP OF IVAN OSTAPYK: PEDAGOGIC SOLUTIONS AND SCHOLARLY SEARCH

The paper stresses that the cultural and literary contacts between the Slavonic peoples have, regrettably, been sporadic, for the most part; the knowledge of them being but fragmentary. According to statistics, the cooperation of the Croatian and Ukrainian peoples, hence the Ukrainian-Croatian intercultural and political ties do not claim too great an abundance in terms of bibliography and richness of events, which is, in particular, due to the historical and political circumstances of the formation of the two peoples and cultures. A significant contribution to the development of the political and cultural relations was made by the L’viv-based school of Croatian Studies. The author focuses on an important but half-forgotten episode in the Ukrainian-Croatian relations, viz. the scholarly-pedagogic activities of Ivan Ostapyk, L’viv University Lecturer, in the course of his one-year long business trip to the University of Zagreb in 1988–1989. Special emphasis is laid on his ingenious pedagogic solutions and scholarly activity, viz. the search for Maksim Bagdanovich’s brochure “Belarussian Renaissance”, Lesia Ukrayinka’s letters to Mania Bykov’ka, a Kyiv-resident girl-friend (married Beliayeva), research material on Belarussian-Ukrainian, Lithuanian-Ukrainian intercultural relations etc. The paper has almost exclusively been written on the strength of the accompanying business-trip documentation and epistolary from the private (home) archives of the Lviv pedagogue and scholar, kindly allowed for use by his wife.

Особенности раннего периода развития бурят-монгольской литературы

The article examines the genesis of Buryat literature, which is key to the modern literary studies of Buryatia. Its aim is to recreate the history of Buryat literature and place it in the cultural and philosophical context of the history of Mongolian ethnos. It is well known that the genesis of Buryat literature owes to the literary work as well as to the theoretical and literary research of the first Buryat scholars and writers from among the Buddhist clergy. The search, introduction, and study of literary works written by Buryat authors in the 18 th — early 20 th centuries is one of the relevant research tasks that opens new perspectives for modern Buryat literary criticism and for humanities in general. The emergence and development of Buryat literature is closely connected with the spread of Buddhist culture, the Buddhist vision of the world, therefore it should be studied in the context of Buddhist aesthetic thought. The article pays special attention to the literary history of Mongolians that, since the 13 th century, has been developing in the context of multilateral literary ties and contacts. It examines the following typical genres: travelogue, hagiographic, hymn poetry, subhashita, and poem.

Вальтер Скотт и Вашингтон Ирвинг: к истории творческих отношений

Walter Scott and Washington Irving are prominent representatives of the Romantic era who were bound by both professional and friendly relations. Their friendship is a remarkable episode in the history of transatlantic literary contacts. In 1817, in Abbotsford, their personal meeting took place, which positively influenced Irving's career. Scott introduced his colleague to his friend John Murray, who was one of the most influential Scottish publishers of his day. Through this meeting, Irving became the first American writer to gain recognition in the UK. An idea of the relationship between Scott and Irving is given by their personal correspondence. Despite the fact that some letters have been lost or are currently in the hands of private collectors, there is enough published material to outline the main topics and interests that united these two writers. In an addendum to the article there are four letters in Russian translation, written in October–December 1819. They are especially noteworthy because they touch on a number of important aspects for Irving's career. In 1819, the American writer took the first steps towards publication in Great Britain and turned to Scott for help. From the master he received a professional assessment of his American editions of The Sketch Book. Scott gave advice on what books are best to publish for an English reader, as well as offered to take the editor post of an anti-Jacobin magazine. In addition, in these letters Scott introduced his American colleague to the intricacies of 19thcentury Scotland book-making and offered the most beneficial ways to communicate with publishers, which is also of interest from the point of view of the history of publishing in the 19th century Great Britain.

PARADYGMAT PRYWATNOŚCI ŚWIATA W TWÓRCZOŚCI UKRAIŃSKICH POETÓW W POLSCE

Ukrainian poets living in Poland, as part of the Ukrainian national minority, had a significant impact on the development of literary awareness in the Ukrainian environment in Poland. Thanks to literary contacts, especially in Podlasie, the literary language began to be used, because here Ukrainian poets initially wrote in the Ukrainian dialect of Podlasie. They also formulated the awareness of the literary language in prose works, which united the national code of Ukrainians belonging to the same nation, beyond religious divisions, Orthodox or Greek Catholics. In a comparative aspect, they became ambassadors of the Ukrainian word in their literary circles, their works were translated into Polish and published in Kiev, Lviv, Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities. When discussing the phenomenon of Ukrainian literature in Podlasie, it must be stated that it has undergone a major transformation of awareness from the Ukrainian-Belarusian dialect border (1970s) to its own Ukrainian literary language area, developing after 1990. This is especially true of the works of Ivan Kyryziuk, Yuri Hawryluk and Yevhenia Zhabinska. At the same time, for such writers as Sofiya Sachko or Yustyna Korolko, the reclassification to Ukrainian or Belarusian literature remains problematic. It would be optimal to say that both poets remain a part of a niche literary discourse undertaken by the Ukrainian dialect of the Bielsk Podlaski region, rooted in the issues of the borderland. In Ukrainian literature in Podlasie, an important role was played by the informal literary yearly “Nash Holos” edited in the 1980s. Its content shows the complex issues of awareness in Podlasie and the names of writers who did not go beyond the realities of the year at that time and are not widely known today. They left behind poems written in Ukrainian Podlasie dialect, valuable from the point of view of the history of literature in this area, often close to folk poetry or Ukrainian poetry from the 19th century, especially to the works of Taras Shevchenko.

How Women Wrote about Themselves: A Corpus- informed Comparison of Women Writers’ Defences in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-century England

Women’s written defences of their sex developed within the literary context of the querelle des femmes, a mainly male debate on female intellectual worth, which started in the Middle Ages and came to a peak during the Renaissance. This paper focuses on the discourse some women writers started to develop in sixteenth- and seventeenth- century England, when the growing number of misogynist attacks led some of them to respond in kind. The first works directly engaging the topics of the querelle are usually identified in Isabella Whitney’s poem The Copy of a Letter (1567) and Jane Anger’s Jane Anger Her Protection For Women (1589). These are coupled with three later pamphlets framed in the so-called Swetnam debate, from the name of the misogynist pamphleteer to whom these three women writers replied, namely A Muzell for Melastomus (1617) by Rachel Speght, Ester Hath Hang’d Haman (1617) by Ester Sowernam and The Worming of a Mad Dogge: or, A Soppe for Cerberus, a Redargution of the Bayter of Women (1617) by Constantia Munda. The qualitative reading of the texts reveals differences among them both in content and structure, which is supported by a corpus-informed quantitative comparison between the earlier and the later texts. The quantitative analysis also shows differences in the use of specific high and low frequency querelle-related lemmas, which signal a variation in the semantic fields related to the discourse on women. Such a mixed research method approach suggests that these variations could not be entirely ascribed to those literary works which had established the formal guidelines of the genre of the controversy, The Praise of Folly (1509) by Erasmus of Rotterdam and De nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus (1529) by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim. To understand where these differences may come from, the English querelle texts are quantitatively compared with a small corpus of Italian defences of women, including Il merito delle donne (The Worth of Women, 1600) by Moderata Fonte and La nobilità, et l’eccellenza delle donne, co’diffetti, et mancamenti, de gli huomini (The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men, 1600; 1621) by Lucrezia Marinella. This quantitative analysis shows that English and Italian women writers appear to share some structural and content-related characteristics which cannot be found in either Erasmus’ or Agrippa’s works or contemporary English writers dealing with the querelle. The hypothesis is thus advanced that there may have been literary contacts between England and Italy that indirectly influenced the development of the discourse on women within the context of the querelle des femmes.

Калмыцкая и тувинская поэзия в антологии «Современная литература народов России. Поэзия»

The article discusses the dialogue of ethnocultures within the anthology titled ‘Contemporary Literature of Russia’s Peoples. Poetry’. The case study of contemporary Russia’s literary processes through works of Kalmyk and Tuvan poetry makes it possible — to a certain degree — to identify its present-day state, examines the existing literary contacts and interrelations, including by means of Russian-language literary translations of compositions by national poets, reveals the translation problem faced by national literatures of our country. Goals. The article presents poetic collections of Kalmyk and Tuvan poets, reveals ethnic worldviews of the Turko-Mongolic peoples through the use of Russian translations. The novelty of the work lies in the fact that this is the first study of Kalmyk and Tuvan poetic lyrics in the format of a modern anthology of literature of Russia’s peoples as a presentation of ethnic poetry for a wide range of Russian-speaking readers. Materials and 57 Фольклористика и литературоведение Methods. The comparative method delineates specific features of Kalmyk and Tuvan poetic works, identifies mental and individual vectors of authors. In terms of gender, the anthology contains works by Kalmyk men poets only. Kalmyk poetry is represented by 5 authors, Tuvan poetry — by 3 authors. The distinctive line is the age. The selected works include none by representatives of senior or junior generations which evidently attests to the fact, on the one hand, there is a problem of generational change and, on the other hand, the compilers faced quite a challenge when it actually came to select authors to be introduced in such anthologies. In genre perspective, both the sections seem to have little to do with the traditional poetic structures and patterns; so, there are some borrowed genres of ballad and poetic legend without any mention of post-modernist experiments. Still, the thematic landscape is traditional enough: motherland, genealogies, national history, nature of ancestral lands, love, and family. The Tuvan poems by E. Mizhit are published in the author’s translations (a bilingual poet), works by the other poets — in V. Kulle’s translations. Results. The study of modern Kalmyk and Tuvan poetry in this book in a comparative aspect reveals similarities and differences in cultures of the Turko-Mongolic peoples, artistic pictures of the world inherent to related ethnic groups.

«Трансатлантика» в Смольном: литературные связи Нового и Старого Света

«Трансатлантика» в Смольном: литературные связи Нового и Старого Света

Fortuna e traduzione delle opere letterarie italiane in Ungheria

La critica letteraria, sia in Ungheria che in Italia, ha prestato grande attenzione alla fortuna e all'irradiazione della letteratura italiana in Ungheria, basti pensare ai tredici volumi, frutto della collaborazione scientifica della Fondazione Giorgi Cini di Venezia e dell'Accademia ungherese delle scienze. L'articolo mira a offrire un'ampia panoramica del successo della letteratura italiana in Ungheria, soprattutto attraverso le traduzioni. L'articolo esamina i vari periodi storici e i movimenti letterari che hanno caratterizzato i contatti letterari tra i due paesi. Fino alla seconda metà del XVIII secolo, l'irradiazione della letteratura italiana si manifestava innanzitutto nell'adozione dei suoi modelli letterari e delle sue formule poetiche nelle opere dei maggiori autori della letteratura ungherese. Il diciannovesimo secolo vide invece la stagione della traduzione dei grandi classici della prima letteratura italiana (Dante, Petrarca e Boccaccio) tradotti di nuovo nel ventesimo secolo, grazie anche all'impegno degli italiani magiari. Infine, l'articolo si concentra sulla situazione attuale, descrivendo le traduzioni di autori contemporanei.

Did the Johannine Community Exist?

This article challenges the historical existence of the ‘Johannine community’ – a hypothesized group of ancient churches sharing a distinctive theological outlook. Scholars posit such a community to explain the similarities of John to 1, 2 and 3 John as well as the epistles’ witness to a network of churches. Against this view, this article calls attention to evidence of literary contact between the four texts and the presence of dubious authorial claims in each. Taken together, these features cast John, 1 John, 2 John and 3 John as unreliable bases for historical reconstruction, whose implied audiences and situations are probably fabrications. The article proceeds to develop a new history of the Johannine texts. Those texts represent a chain of literary forgeries, in which authors of different extractions cast and recast a single invented character – an eyewitness to Jesus’ life – as the mouthpiece of different theological viewpoints.

Artistic and aesthetical transformation of the Uyghur literature of Kazakhstan in the period of Independence

The modern Uyghur literature of Kazakhstan during the period of Independence evolves in the context of two interconnected and interdependent literary forms of its artistic and aesthetic transformation, in which the historical and cultural experience of the people themselves, their customs, folklore and written traditions are clearly manifested. Along with this, also it is influenced by the processes of interweaving, mutual influence with different national verbal cultures of Kazakhstan and the rest of the world as well. It enters a completely different stage of the artistic and cultural transformation, which taking place in a multi-vector Kazakhstan society. Uighur writers comprehend the new sociopolitical reality, as a different, modernizing artistic and aesthetic reality, which significantly distinguishes it from the previous Uyghur Soviet literature. On the one hand, they participate in the new literary polyphony of Kazakhstan (translations, mutual translations and literary contacts). This leads to the formation of a special binary verbal national culture, leading, in general, to a multicultural literary tradition: in particular: Kazakh-Uyghur, Turkish-Uyghur, Russian-Uyghur, etc. On the other hand, modern literature is objectively moving towards to a variety of cognition methods of aesthetic reality. New literary trends, new methods of depicting reality, etc. appear.

ІСТОРИЧНА ПРОЗА МІХАЛА ЧАЙКОВСЬКОГО У КОНТЕКСТІ ЕСТЕТИЧНИХ ШУКАНЬ «УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ШКОЛИ»

The article analyses the visions of Polish literary critics, attesting to a certain reception of the life path as well as the comprehension of Michal Tchaikovsky’s works in the context of the Polish Romanticism “Ukrainian school”. The genre-thematic and compositional features of the prose are also outlined, the author’s narrative strategy is analysed, and both ideological and aesthetic writer views and his literary contacts are shown. The significance of his creativity and activity through the implementation of the romantic idea is clarified. Tchaikovsky’s creation of a prose formula for Romantic Ukrainianism, the search for new forms of transferring Ukrainian stereotypes to Polish soil is still poorly understood. Various manifestations of reception and prose typology, M. Tchaikovsky’s artistic skill in the context of the “Ukrainian school” became the subject of the research. The author’s world-views were taken into account while studying Tchaikovsky’s prose which made it possible to systematically outline the problems, poetic and genre features of the works. The embodiment of the romantic ethnic hero features, a look on the Cossacks are expressed both in the works themselves and in the author’s prefaces, comments, notes making up an integral part of the writer’s creative achievements. M. Tchaikovsky is considered the father of a Polish historical novel. Mythologized vision of history and modern Polish-Ukrainian relations are reflected in various prose forms – diary, gavendas (“Gavendas”, “Legends”, “The Poles and Poles Strange Life”), adventure stories (“Wernygora”, “Kirdzhali”, “Stefan Charnetsky”, “Koshovata”, “Ovruchanyn”, “Hetman of Ukraine”), modern stories (“The Gilovs”, “Anna”), pamphlets (“Bulgaria”, “Nemolyaka”, “Bosnia”, “From Hetman Lach Times”). Slavic-Turkish tales of the Danube Cossacks whose manuscripts were burned in Istanbul remain still unknown. The movement of life was the M. Tchaikovsky environment namely a direct action in which one sees scope, confidence, and desire to bring to life all that he dreamed of. The author of “Wernygora” realised his longing for ancient life through literary activity, he dreamed of Ukraine, and created a world he wanted to see around him. The Cossacks, Slavophilism and colourful personalities have become he sources of M. Tchaikovsky’s works. The moment of literary creativity comes in the periods when the social roles of the politician and the soldier have been lost. The paper is another step towards understanding the place and role of M. Tchaikovsky’s works in Polish romanticism through the prism of historical prose. It is an attempt to read the works scientifically in the context of historical, social and cultural factors at the theoretical level. Research is a contribution to the set of theoretical knowledge of hermeneutics, theory of literature, social anthropology.

И.А. Бунин в межвоенной Польше. Несостоявшееся турне

The following paper explores the reception of Ivan Bunin’s literary legacy in the interwar Poland. The question of how The Nobel Prize in Literature influenced the writer’s popularity in Poland. The main aim of this article is to analyze and characterize those circumstances, which became the reason for Bunin’s failure to visit Poland during his literary tour to the Baltic countries in 1938. Selected materials were taken from traditional card and online catalogues in the National Library of Poland and the University of Warsaw Library. They embrace the period from 1920 to 1940. The analysis, on the one hand, shows the problem of political relationships between the revived Polish state and young Soviet Russia and its role in the development of literary contacts in the interwar period. On the other hand, it allows us to draw conclusions about the political and literary dimensions of I. Bunin’s failed tour to Poland.

German-Ukrainian dialogue: the influence of the international festivals on the development of the German-Ukrainian literary contacts (1990s – early 21st century)

German-Ukrainian dialogue: the influence of the international festivals on the development of the German-Ukrainian literary contacts (1990s – early 21st century)

Особенности художественных переводов саамских поэтов на русский язык

Introduction: the article is devoted to the topical issue of cross-cultural relations of Kola Saami literature. The subject of the analysis is the interlinear translations of the Saami poets’ works into the Russian language. Objective: to identify the equivalence of translations of the Saami authors into the Russian language in the transmission of cultural meanings, values, and ethnic psychology. Research materials: the poetic works of the Saami authors and variants of their translations. Results and novelty of the research: the article analyzes Russian-Saami literary contacts for the first time. The focus of the work is on the accuracy and peculiarities of translations of the Saami poets into the Russian language. The analysis of the material allowed us to conclude that poetic translations of the Saami authors into the Russian language do not always accurately recreate the meanings and images of the interlinear translations, which is due to the complexity of the task in translating national literature. The Russian translators saturate the text with poetic liberties; adorn it with visual and expressive means that reflect the Russian national color; include Russian proverbs, sayings and stable phrases, religious and Christian notions; use translations as an excuse to create their own poem, which, in turn, distorts the general meaning of the original, deprives it of ethnicity, and makes poetic translations of Saami interlinear translations culturally adapted, authorized, and ethnocentric.

Сорабістичні дослідження Володимира Моторного в українських та зарубіжних періодичних виданнях

Abstract Background: The scientific sorabic works of Professor V. A. Motornyy includes more than 50 scientific articles, reviews, reports on Lusatian topics and in general gives an opportunity to look into different periods of Lusatian-Ukrainian literary and cultural relations. The works of the scholar on the literature of Sorbian Lusatia, on Michał August Kral, the founder of Ukrainian literary studies in Lusatia, on the development of Ukrainian Sorbian studies, on Lusatian motives in Ukrainian literature, etc. are invaluable. V. A. Motornyy is the winner of the prestigious Domovina Prize in 2002, which he received for his services in the development of Sorbian studies in Ukraine and for disseminating, in particular in the form of publications, knowledge about Lusatian Serbs. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to draw public attention to the works of Professor Motornyy, which were published in Ukrainian, Lusatian, and Hungarian periodicals magazines and collections. We will take into account the most important for inter-Slavic cultural and literary contacts of the professor's articles, published in Ukraine and abroad, namely, in magazines and collections “Questions of Sorbian studies”, “Lĕtopis”, “Práce z dĕjin slavistiky”, “Studia Slavica Savariensia”. Results: The works of V. A. Motornyy on the Sorbian theme, which are essential in the All-Slavic context. His rich Sorbian heritage gives reason to hope that over the years it will not be forgotten what the famous researcher of literature and culture of the Lusatian Serbs devoted his scientific research to, that his scientific achievements will be necessary for future generations of Slavists. Over time, there are some transformations in scientific approaches to individual facts, their interpretations by literary science. Modern works of Lusatian, Polish and other foreign researchers will undoubtedly continue the scientific traditions of the Ukrainian scientist. Key words: V. А. Motornyy, Sorabic studies, Sorabic studies school in Lviv, periodicals, scientific interests, comparative research.

The development of Mongolian theory of poetry in the context of Indo-Tibetan poetic tradition

The article examines the genesis and development of the medieval Mongolian poetic system. Mongolian literature of the Middle Ages developed within the Central Asian, Indo-Tibetan cultural context. Literary relations and contacts became especially active with the emergence and subsequent spread of Buddhism and its philosophy. Since the 17th century Ancient Indian Sanskrit poetry becomes a subject of increased attention. Treatises on poetry becomes to be translated, in particular, “Kavyadarsha” by Dandin, as well as Tibetan “debers”. The latter became instrumental for teaching and learning poetical styles, metres and versification systems. All this contributed to the formation and development of the Mongolian theory of poetry. Many poets and writers came from among the Mongolian learned monks. These people were familiar with the best examples of Indian and Tibetan literature as well as with the principles according to which they were constructed (poetics). Moreover, they themselves were authors of original works, which comprised learned comments on ancient Indian writings on aesthetics, philosophy and poetry, in such a way contributing to the further development of the theory of literature and flourishing of Mongolian poetry.

Chinese Fiction as a ‘Signal Bell of the Revolution’ and the Transregional Birth of an Author

Abstract This essay examines late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century interest in Shi Nai’an, the putative author of the traditional Chinese novel, The Water Margin. Despite the paucity of reliable evidence attesting to Shi Nai’an’s composition of The Water Margin, Japanese writers of the Meiji period were keenly interested in Shi on the basis of his alleged stature as a pioneering author of Oriental or East Asian (Tōyō) fiction. This characterization of Shi Nai’an was a byproduct of the recently established academic discipline of literary history in Japan, and the concomitant desire by Meiji-period historians to locate a literary text that could compete with Western works in terms of narrative and structural complexity. When late Qing-period Chinese authors became aware of Japanese writing on Shi Nai’an, they built on this budding biographical tradition by emphasizing Shi’s identification with an incipient Chinese nationalism, evidenced by his alleged resistance to the Mongol regime during the Yuan dynasty. The case study of Shi Nai’an thus illustrates the nexus between the construction of authorial personae and the pursuit of various ideological goals, as well as demonstrates the centrality of transregional literary contact in the formation of emergent concepts of authorship and canonization in modern East Asia.

Interferenz statt Verspätung – Die Polysystemtheorie als Beschreibungsmodell für ‚kleine‘ Literaturen

Interference instead of Belatedness – Polysystem Theory as a Descriptive Model for ‘Small’ Literatures. Luxembourg literature can be considered a ‘small’ literature from various angles. Its small size, young age and the existence of a sparsely diffused language within a multilingual setting are features that also apply to other small European literary systems and that affect their self-perception fundamentally. In that context, Jeanne E. Glesener has identified a “discourse on smallness” which is developed by the literary centres and unconsciously internalized by the actors of small literary systems themselves: this discourse is essentially shaped by the ideas of creative sterility, poor visibility and, particularly, literary belatedness. However, as Glesener points out with respect to Pascale Casanova’s concept of literary time, the notion of belatedness wrongly implies that all literary systems sooner or later generate the same literary phenomena; it is therefore highly problematic. This paper introduces Itamar Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory – which has been designed in view of the Israeli literary system – as an alternative descriptive model for ‘small’ and multilingual literatures. Proceeding from the example of Luxembourg ‘Heimatliteratur’ in the second half of the 20th century, I would like to argue that by openly acknowledging every system’s historical and sociological characteristics and by excluding the notion of comparison from the analysis, the concept of ‘polysystemic interference’ allows for a more neutral study of literary contacts and literary change.

Yevhen Malaniuk and Dariia Vikonska. Artistically Transformed History of Princely Family of Fedorovyches in Poem “Meeting”

Karolina Ivanna Fedorovych-Malytska (1893–1945) came into Ukrainian writing and culture as Dariia Vikonska, the author of short prose, literary studies, critical reviews and art studies. She was close to the circle of ʻvisnykivtsiʼ (the ʻVisnyk-poetsʼ). The history of literary contacts between Yevhen Malaniuk and Dariia Vikonska remains fragmentary and little known. The paper focuses on the poem “Pobachennia” (“Meeting”) by Malaniuk that transforms the history of Fedorovyches family in an artistic way. Ukrainian princely family of Fedorovyches spread all over the Europe creating its history, culture and contributing to its economic development. The line in which Karolina Ivanna Fedorovych-Malytska was the last representative remained Ukrainian. Other lines dissolved in other national cultures (often Polish). Yevhen Malaniuk left a brief memoir about Dariia Vikonska within an episode of his visit to the estate of Malytskyis in Podillia region. Some fragments of conversations and reminiscences in the fi rst part of the poem “Meeting” supplement the description of this visit. The poem was written in 1939–1941 and consists of three parts although its structure is somewhat obscure. The fi rst part of the poem artistically describes the fate of the Ukrainian princely family of Fedorovyches in historiosophical perspective. This family is rooted in the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The second and third parts of the poem are oneiric visions of the lyrical character. The poet tells about the meeting with the general Vasyl Tiutiunnyk, the deceased chief of the Armed Forces Headquarters of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, and premonition of a mysterious meeting with already deceased parents and grandparents that should happen after the death of the character. The mystical third part of the poem describes the transition of the human soul to eternity in a lyrical literary way.

Словацкая литература в русскоязычном и украиноязычном пространстве: обзор современной ситуации

This paper is devoted to the question of Slovak-Russian and Slovak-Ukrainian literary contacts. The tradition of literary translation from Slovak into these two Slavic languages dates back to the moment of codification of the Slovak literary language in the mid-19th century. Since then, it has always been under the pressure of political circumstances. In the initial phase, it was interest to the process of national revival of Slavic peoples in the mid- 19th century. The second period of high interest was during the socialist times from the 1960s to the 1980s (this period is mostly prolific for Russian translations from Slovak; on the contrary, the amount of translations into Ukrainian was scanty as Russian language was common for all Soviet nations). There was also a period of total absence of any translation activity from Slovak into Russian during the 1990s. In between these phases, literary translations from Slovak were the fact of personal initiative. The latter is the situation of the present day both in Russia and in Ukraine. That is why when listing the titles translated for the last thirty years, it is crucial to name the most prominent translators and researchers. And this fact is also the cause why the choice of the Slovak works differs greatly, with the same amount of translated titles from Slovak into Russian and Ukrainian. For the last two decades, about twenty Slovak works have been translated into both Russian and Ukrainian, but except for a novel Zóna nadšenia [Enthusiasm Zone] by J. Banaš, there is not a single work of modern Slovak literature translated into both languages. Many significant works of modern Slovak literature are not translated into neither Russian or Ukrainian (for example, there is not a single book edition of the works of P. Vilikovský, P. Pišťanek, D. Kapitáňová, etc.). The most active translators into Ukrainian are researchers and writers living on the territory of Slovak-Ukrainian border T. Likhtei, I. Yatskanin, and some others. In Russia, the most prominent translators from Slovak are Moscow researchers A. Mashkova, A. Peskova, L. Shirokova, and others. The lack of active perception of Slovak literature in foreign language space leads to the inevitable occurrence of a number of translation errors and inaccuracies. This lack also brings about the problem of translation studies and comparative studies, which in Slovakia are based on the translations from Russian into Slovak. The conclusion is made that in spite of the historical, lingual, cultural, and territorial proximity and intense literary contacts in the past, neither Russian, nor Ukrainian space is familiar with the contemporary Slovak literature today. The explanation of this fact may lie in the Slovak self-consciousness, which is much more Central European than Slavic. This observation is made on the basis of the analysis of Slovak literary works as well as previous research mentioned in the paper.