The motif of escapism in the Ukrainian short prose of the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Abstract

The article attempts a typological comparison of the motif of escapism and its varieties in the novellas of two representatives of Ukrainian impressionistic short prose at the turn of the twentieth century – Bohdan Lepky and Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky. It is shown that escapism is a multifaceted and versatile phenomenon inherent in humanity at different stages of its development and manifested in various forms. It can be interpreted as a fantasy or dream aimed at escaping social reality, or as any activity that brings relief and calmness from everyday duties and routine. Such activity may be positive and contribute to psychological recovery. It is argued that escapism as a phenomenon has three components: what a person is escaping from (1), where he or she is escaping to (2), and how this escape is carried out (by what means or techniques) (3).

The motif of escapism became especially prominent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during the period of radical renewal of European, including Ukrainian, literature, marked by changes in artistic thinking and world perception, the expansion of themes and problems in short prose, and the growing attention to the inner world of the individual.

It is demonstrated that the theme of the complete spiritual rebirth of the protagonist, Platonid Yakymchuk – formerly a reveler and admirer of a comfortable urban civilization – is realized in Bohdan Lepky’s novella “Мій товариш” [My Comrade]. As a result of a mystical vision, a “prophetic” dream in which he witnesses the death of his rival in love, the hero undergoes a radical transformation: he moves to a remote village, becomes a priest, and turns into a critic of human alienation from nature and religion. The novella is constructed on the principle of contrast.

It is also shown that the miniature “Хочу писати” [I Want to Write] by Bohdan Lepky and the novella “Intermezzo” by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky reveal similar problems, character types, and emotional atmospheres. In both works, the protagonists experience a creative crisis caused by different circumstances, and escapism functions as a kind of psychoanalytic strategy of spiritual healing and restoration of mental balance.

The study concludes that the motif of escapism gains particular significance and new forms of manifestation in Ukrainian short prose of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The characters of Lepky’s and Kotsiubynsky’s novellas are representatives of the intelligentsia and the artistic milieu, inclined to reflection and possessing a complex psychological organization, who experience states of crisis. In “My Comrade”, the hero, as a result of a mystical vision, becomes disillusioned with urban civilization and escapes to the countryside in search of harmony with pristine nature and a new meaning of life; this type of escape may be interpreted as a combination of spatial and internal religious escapism. In “I Want to Write” and “Intermezzo”, the lyrical protagonists are artists who turn to nature in order to restore mental equilibrium and overcome a crisis. In these works, the escape is temporary. The hero of “I Want to Write”, suffering from creative exhaustion, escapes in his imagination into the mysterious beauty of nature (an example of internal, imaginary escapism), while the protagonist of “Intermezzo” overcomes his inner conflict through solitude in the steppe landscape and the displacement of traumatic factors from the subconscious (an example of spatial escapism with a psychotherapeutic function). The problems raised in the analyzed novellas testify to the authors’ interest in contemporary European philosophical trends and to their aspiration to create in the spirit of modern European literature.