THE ARTISTIC REALIZATION OF THE COSSACK LIFE AUTHENTICITY IN HISTORICAL NOVELS IN VERSE
The article scrutinizes the specificity of the modeling of the Cossack customs and traditions in the contemporary historical novels in verse such as L. Horlach’s “The Open Field”, L. Kostenko’s “Marusіa Churaі” and “Berestechko”, M. Tіutіunnyk’s “Marusіa Bohuslavka”. The plot artistic conceptions of these novels are based on historical realities with deeply philosophical generalization and profound description of Cossacks’ mode of life that represent Ukrainian folk customs in the period of both the foreign threat and inside fight in Ukraine in 17th century. These works also contain the projection on present-day social, moral and ethical problems. Despite exterminations, persecutions and all the vicissitudes of the totalitarian period the Cossack customs and traditions have survived and continue to actively regenerate first of all thanks to folk lyric-epic, scientific sources and fiction, especially in historical genres. Historical novels in verse are not exclusion where the history has a special conceptual in the creation of the artistic verse of existence. Therefore the works of this genre have a lot of plot parallels with heroic national epic genres and represent the artistic world view of the Cossacks’ community; they canonize the military professional knowledge, the rites realization and also introduce the unwritten moral code of Cossack’s behavior, emphasize on obligatory execution of the kin, society and Sitch’s customs. Although the studies of such novel in verse researches as V. Briukhovets’kyi, V. Biliatska, Z. Golubieva, I. Dzіuba, I. Zakutna, N. Kyrylenko, G. Klochek, L. Kuzhilna, L. Myronіuk, V. Panchenko, Ye. Pіatkovska, V. Saіenko, the indicated problem has not been an object of scientific research in L. Horlach’s “The Open Field”, L. Kostenko’s “Marusіa Churaі” and “Berestechko”, M. Tіutіunnyk’s “Marusіa Bohuslavka”. Keeping the historical reliability in the novels in verse under review there are presented such Cossack customs as Christianity honoring, faithfulness to the motherland, brotherhood, mental, moral and patriotic training, knowledge of traditional medicine and will temper, skills of playing folk musical instruments and entertaining in dances and songs; passing through the special service of dzhura (“chura”) for receiving a “Cossack” status; honour of woman; awarding of an honored surname. The coloring scenes of Cossack life in the analyzed novels are often given by the writers through the retrospective of the old age characters who retell the biography not from the romorouses but they had been witnesses and participants of some historical events themselves like the old man Halernyk (“Marusіa Churaі”), Maksym Zahreba (“Marusіa Bohuslavka”), Ivan Sirko (“The Open Field”). The contemporary novels in verse promote profound comprehension of historical events, statehood, they dwell on faith in the optimistic prospects of future, reveal the conception of the unicity of feeling to motherland.