79. Symbolism in Ukrainian literature

Symbolism. A poetic movement of the second half of the 19th century that originated in France, where it attained its greatest flowering between 1885 and 1895, and exerted strong influence throughout Europe. French symbolism represented a reaction against naturalism and realism in favor of subjective and esthetic experience. Seeking analogies in music, armed with a sense of the magical power of the word, predisposed toward esoteric symbols, metaphors, and synesthesia, symbolist poets created a highly evocative, personal, and transcendental poetry.

Symbolism in Ukraine was influenced by both the French and the Russian movements (in Galicia, Polish influence was also pronounced), but it never attained the stature it did in France or Russia. Symbolist trends rather than a self-conscious organized movement existed in Ukraine, although there were periods during which symbolist or quasi-symbolist groupings were active.

The first symbolist tendencies manifested themselves during the late 1890s in a noticeable de-emphasis on civic themes, the abandonment of realist poetics, the rejection of ‘utilitarian’ literature, and the revival of poetry. In 1901 Ivan Franko noted that young writers were placing emphasis on psychology and mood. Pursuit of the beautiful and defense of the autonomy of poetry (‘art for art's sake’) became prominent leitmotivs in the literary community. Writers betraying any of those inclinations were variously referred to as symbolists, decadents, or modernists. Alarmed reactions to the new literary vogue on the part of populist and realist figures (Ivan Nechui-Levytsky, Serhii Yefremov, Franko), a conservative reading public, and the unenviable political status of Ukraine no doubt restrained poets from moving away more decisively from their social obligations into private and personal spheres.

Mykola Vorony was the first major exponent of modernist sentiments in Ukraine. The guidelines he set for contributors to the almanac Z nad khmar i dolyn (From Above the Clouds and Valleys, 1903) testify to a distinct symbolist orientation, and in his correspondence with Ukrainian writers he speaks explicitly of ‘taking from symbolism’ its best virtues. Vorony spoke out in defense of ‘pure art,’ a refined estheticism, and urged writers to embrace a philosophical attitude (whether pantheistic, metaphysical, or mystical) that would depict the ideal, the beautiful, and the mysterious. His own poetry fulfilled those requisites with considerable formal merit, although like a majority of his generation he never completely rejected engagé verse. Vorony's symbolist poetry was not designed to supplant the poet's civic responsibility; it was designed to serve as its complement, which would reinvigorate the poet for the challenges of the ‘real’ world.

80. Expressionism in Ukrainian plastic arts

Expressionism. A movement in the plastic arts that originated during and immediately after the First World War and had the greatest impact in Germany and Austria. The expressionists revolted against representational conventions and sought a new spontaneity and an intensity of inner vision. From this followed the intensely subjective expression, emotivity, exaggeration, and distortion that are typical of the movement. In Ukrainian art expressionism was quite moderate and was represented mainly by Oleksa Novakivsky, Anatol Petrytsky, Oleksa Hryshchenko, Mykola Butovych, Myroslav Radysh, and partly by Alexander Archipenko (in sculpture). Jurij Solovij, Liuboslav Hutsaliuk, and other modern painters in the West have been influenced by American (the so-called New York) expressionism.

In literature, as in painting, expressionism emphasized the inner significance of things and not their external forms. It paid more attention to the effect of imagery, language, and sound than to content, in order to evoke a state of mind. In Ukrainian literature, the reverberations of expressionism did not last long, although they left their mark on poetry, prose, and drama. In the 1920s, the poet Valeriian Polishchuk was influenced by German expressionists such as W. Hasenclever, K. Edschmid, and J. Becher. The most important representative of expressionism in Ukrainian literature was Mykola Khvylovy; his short stories were a combination of expressionism and neoromanticism. The poetic expressionism of Teodosii Osmachka (in his first collection, Krucha [Precipice 1922]) and Mykola Bazhan was fresh and original. In drama Mykola Kulish’s 97 and Narodnyi Malakhii (The People's Malakhii) and Ivan Dniprovsky's Liubov i dym (Love and Smoke) and Iablunevyi polon (Apple-Blossom Captivity) showed an affinity to expressionism. Dniprovsky's prose was also expressionistic (eg, Dolyna uhriv [The Valley of the Hungarians]). Elements of expressionism are also evident in the poetry and plays of Ivan Bahriany. At the beginning of the 1930s socialist realism was imposed by the Soviet authorities and thus expressionism declined and disappeared. The expressionists became victims of political persecution. M. Khvylovy committed suicide; others (V. Polishchuk and M. Kulish) perished in Stalin’s camps, fell silent, or followed the official Soviet cultural line (M. Bazhan).