SHAPING MODERN UKRAINIAN IDENTITY: DEMIURGIC ACTIVITIES OF UKRAINIAN WRITERS

Abstract

Background. The creative activity of Ukrainian word artists was an important component of the creation of Ukrainian national identity during the 20th and early 21st centuries.

The g o a l of this article is to investigate the dynamics and main stimuli of the creative efforts of Ukrainian cultural figures in its connection with socio-political development (especially in part of the national identity formation process) of Ukraine before and after 1991.

M e t h o d s. The following methods were used: content- and discourse analysis, historical-comparative analysis.   

R e s u l t s. Due to Ukraine's long stay as a part of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, the Ukrainian language factor acquired exceptional importance for the formation of Ukrainian identity. No less significant was the existence of Ukrainian and Ukrainian-language translated literature as a basis for the creation of a full-blooded Ukrainian spiritual and intellectual space, without which the formation of a sovereign nation is impossible. The creativity of Ukrainian artists after 1991 is considered as a reminiscence of the demiurgic efforts of the Ukrainian revival of the 20s and 30s of the XX century. Both periods became exceptionally productive thanks to the personal efforts of Ukrainian artists, aimed at overcoming the "lethargic state" of Ukrainian culture in pre-revolutionary times (before 1917) and during the years of the Soviet regime after the short revival.

The article examines those directions of Ukrainian cultural development that ensured the vitality and fruitfulness of Ukrainian culture through the destruction of taboos imposed from the outside, prescriptions of an alien cultural canon and ideological teachings; introduction of author's language innovations in artistic and translated texts; translation of works of a wide variety of genres and styles. In the same context, the importance of the work of diaspora artists is emphasized. Special attention is paid to the activities of foreign creators, whose work enriched Ukrainian cultural oecumen with the best intellectual achievements of world importance; as well as those creators who made the Ukrainian cultural product accessible to a foreign audience through the creation of anthologies, including bilingual ones.

   The peculiarities of the demiurgic activity of modern Ukrainian artists in wartime after the beginning of Russia's large-scale military aggression against Ukraine are also taken under considertion.

C o n c l u s i o n. The socio-political processes of the country an influential factor and a stimulus for the individual creative activity of Ukrainian writers, cultural figures and intellectuals. The nature of their creative activity closely correlates with the process of formation of Ukrainian national identity.