Articulating the experience of the Other in the literary text (based on the mystical short story “Зачарований рік” by Sofia Yablonska)

Abstract

The study reveals that in Ukrainian literature of the first half of the 20th century, a prominent place is given to the strategy of articulating travel experiences by writers. Among the achievements of travel literature of that period, the works of Sofia Yablonska hold particular interest. It is emphasized that in her travels, she sought to understand the world and herself within it; therefore, her writings focus on various aspects such as the exoticism of countries, the national narrative (Self / Other), the traveller’s gaze upon the Other, the exploration of the Other’s space, and the Other’s view of the traveller. Yablonska gradually uncovered the phenomenon of Chineseness: she articulated it in her works, captured it in photographs, and filmed it. In the short story Зачарований рік [The Enchanted Year], the author employed the poetics of the mystical, through which she activated a unique artistic discourse and described the experience of the Other. It is noted that in the depiction of the mystical, archaic and mythological worldviews dominate, which reflects a belief in the perfection of “mythical” consciousness and in the truth of the “supreme wisdom of mythical primordial time” (H.-G. Gadamer). One of the tools used to intensify the mystical aspect was numerical symbolism, which appealed to mythological thinking, where numbers serve as guides and involve the profane in the mythic-religious process of “sanctification.” The universal principle of myth organization becomes the structuring element of the story, and its meaning is constructed through the revelation of dichotomies such as Europe / Asia, traditional China / modern China. This worldview is revealed through attitudes toward genii, who possess supernatural properties and can influence human lives. While representatives of the first worldview strategy interpreted Chinese cultural artefacts and practices through a material-substantive and logical-rationalist lens (Simon, Shen-Ta-Ko, the young doctor), those of the second worldview strategy appealed to the irrational and that which is beyond ratio (Rita, Liao-Shen, the Tibetan bonze). The confrontation of these two worldviews gives rise to a third, in which the understanding of the experience of the Other is formed as one that surpasses through the sharpness of judgment (the consuls, the old doctor, the female narrator-protagonist). The mystical, as a component of the work’s poetics, fulfils a syntactic function in the short story. The mystical atmosphere intensifies gradually, “speaking” in a mysterious and didactic manner. The analysis allows us to conclude that the author incorporated the mystical into the literary text with an epistemological intent.