A concept model of national spirit through the lens of the ukrainian literary tradition

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A concept model of national spirit through the lens of the ukrainian literary tradition

Kolyada-Berezovska T.F., Associate Professor, Department of Information Activity and Media Communications Odessa National Polytechnic University

Zinchenko O. S.,

Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Languages Odessa National Academy of Food Technologies

Turetsky V. O., Teacher, Department of Foreign Languages Odessa National Academy of Food Technologies

Summary. The authors analyse the most typical intentional concepts used by generations of folk poets as well as by professional poets and writers; consider these concepts as the determiners of culture, spirituality, and national spirit. The authors focus on the period of Ukrainian Baroque, which is viewed as the process of the formation of a Ukrainian artistic personality's style. In particular, the Baroque elements in Lina Kostenko's poetry are considered. The importance is emphasised of a person's ethnic and cultural self-identification that opposes the dehumanising tendencies in modern science and education under the influence of global universalistic doctrines.

Key words: intentional concept, concept model, national spirit, ethnoculture, intentional nature of a person, Ukrainian Baroque phenomenon.

Problem statement. The national strategy of the development of modern higher education is aimed at the formation of Ukraine's intellectual resources, its elite. This is supposed to be achieved through young students' profound and comprehensive adoption of the achievements of their native culture. It goes without saying that this is only possible with the humanisation and “humanitarisation” (reinforcing the humanitarian component) of higher technical education. The problem that needs to be considered and solved is the fact that nowadays young people have no clear idea of what place (existential space) is allotted for a person's cultural and existential self-identification, his or her exclusively creative self-actualisation. This is due to the absence of basic premises for the interpretation of the changes in the world's outlook and current sociocultural processes. To solve the problem outlined, it should be considered on the ontological level. The definitive statement of the problem requires a certain clarification: what is culture, and why is it the matter of consideration nowadays? Now, it is not only and not so much the systemic and value criteria that are absent in different spheres of cultural activity, but the ontological principles of the very possibility of analysing the situation in the whole.

Recent studies. For a few decades, there has been scholars' steady interest to the analysis of the key words - the concepts of the nation's literary and language culture (N. Arutyunova, S. Buroho, O. Zabuzhko, M. Ignatenko, Yu. Lazebnyk, Z. Lastovetska-Solanska, N. Lobur, H. Lozko, T. Meyzerska, N. Motroshylova, H. Radziyevska, M. Shlemkevych and many others). In the present context, it correlates with the problem stated above. The worldview is transmitted into our consciousness by a paradigm of concepts that are specific concentrated determiners of the experience of genera-174 tions representing the language as a whole. So, if we analyse the most typical of these concepts, we can obtain a model of a social system: beliefs, knowledge, understanding, and communication peculiarities.

We agree with the opinion that culture should also be viewed as a principle of human life. The purpose of this principle is establishing a positive basic meaning of the visible and invisible world that an individual can sense or realise [1, p. 34]. Besides, one of the characteristic features of nowadays, related, directly or indirectly, to the problem in question, is understanding culture as spirituality.

Those of the society who belong to intellectuals try to look deep into the very essence of what is commonly referred to as spirituality. They sincerely blame spiritual poverty, seek answers in the works by their contemporaries or thinkers of the past. Painful reflections on what happened and is still happening to our souls is a present day symptom, too. There used to be no clear position as for political matters, and likewise there is no clarity, either, about what spirituality, spiritual poverty, and anti-spirituality are.

In this context, the purpose of our research is an attempt to analyse the intentional concepts presenting Ukrainian mentality in artistic works by outstanding creators, and to construct a hypothetical model of national spirit.

As an introduction, we would like to quote the reputable philosopher N. Motroshylova. She believes that “in a complex and demanding process of developing a new type of philosophising responsive to the tasks of nowadays, there are no elements of minor importance”. One of such essential directions, in her opinion, is overcoming cultural relativism. “Louder and louder is the voice of today's leading philosophers who support the right of nations, countries, and cultures to respect for <..> their cultural and artistic identity” [2, p. 243]. But our view of the national spirit is free from any transcendental admixtures. We believe that spirit, as well as nation, is not something permanent in its essence, set once and for all, nor is it mystic. No, it is dynamic and subject to changes in the course of history. The spirit contains something that can be called the dominant feature of the spiritual world - its key trend, the main characteristic of the dynamic existence of many attitudinal, intellectual, perceptional, cultural factors within a single spiritual system. On the other hand, an inherent feature of spirit is its extreme steadiness. This makes us accept the idea of the substantial nature of this formation, though it would be unscientific to deny that it has its time constraints.

Thus, we view national spirit as a substantial formation, as a steady foundation for the national character unchangeable for

quite a long time - centuries, even millennia. National spirit is formed historically and becomes part of the genome of a national human type. This process takes place influenced by quite a number of factors. Their combination makes a resultant vector that is extremely steady and, like any system, able to arrange and regulate itself. It can also actively oppose destructive forces and even accumulate its energy in such circumstances.

Ukrainian cultural heritage appeared to be extremely enduring. It was the depth of the national character, its indestructible ancient genes that contained the spirit of self-identification and self-realisation. It is that very spirit that has saved the Ukrainian people as an ethnocultural phenomenon despite all the dynastic ties with the Varangians, multiple facts of genocide, and the extermination of the intellectual stratum of the society. It might have been the national spirit - the substance of the national character - that Ye. Hutsa- lo was eager to extract from the chaos and rubbish of temporary accretions, as he said, “I've always wanted to describe the Ukrainian soul, Ukrainian character - to do it but in the Ukrainian language that would correspond with this soul and this character. Of course, the soul and character must correspond with the Ukrainian language. <..> With any times coming and going by, the Ukrainian character has to stay forever” [3, p. 8].

The source of the strength of Ukrainian culture is, in our opinion, a tradition - a mechanism of self-preservation and self-renewal. The cultural process in Ukraine is characterised by its continuity, which was noted by leading scientists in our country and abroad. This cultural duration in Ukrainian lands was interrupted never and in no place, even in the years when Ukraine was not a state. The Ukrainian nation has preserved its identity largely due to “the pre-Christian myths, folk beliefs, folklore, songs, rituals, customs, clothes, pysankas, kolyadkas, New Year songs that have helped Ukrainian mentality survive” [4, p. 70]. Besides, it has been due to the creative activity of such prominent authors as H. Skovoroda, I. Kotlyarevsky, T. Shevchenko, I. Franko, Lesya Ukrainka, O. Dovzhenko, O. Olzhych, V Stus, Lina Kostenko and others.

Some modern scientists believe that Ukrainian culture survived through the times of historical disasters only because its old culture and mentality were already at a very high level. Without this culture, in the situation of forced interruption of the process of creating Ukraine's own culture, it would be impossible to understand the nation's further cultural development. “Ukrainian national culture”, wrote V. Shayan, “is preserved not as a tabula rasa, not as a fresh-painted sign plate with nothing on it. It is preserved as a sacrament of the soul, in the mystery play of the reality of our soul's existence”. The same idea of the continuity of Ukrainian cultural development was supported by I. Franko. While studying ancient Ukrainian apocryphal texts, he arrived at the conclusions about “the unity of purpose, the incessant integrity of Ukrainian literary tradition and spiritual interests throughout our centuries-long history” (quoted by [4, p. 71]).

Today, all studies in different branches of science (archaeology, ethnology, art history), when trying to find the proto-origin, proto-basis of Ukrainian mentality, turn to the Tripolye culture. It appeared in the late Neolithic, thus being the most archaic age of human culture. One of the most significant achievements of this period is considered to be the formation of the proto-Indo-European linguistic community. At the same time, as researchers state, the language originated and the terrain was brought under cultivation. Thus, the secrets of the Ukrainian language are related to the secrets of the Ukrainian land.

Culture is the process and the result of signification in our activity - and likewise the language is the process and the result of signification in our consciousness. One cannot deny that it is the language that unites the culture of an ethnic group in a continuous, uninterrupted process. Besides, the language, according to the Sapir - Whorf hypothesis, structurises, in a certain way, the national reality. A nation's culture and historic peculiarity never exist beyond a code - a language. We suppose this connection is established through a functional language style. It is this style that most vividly reflects the mechanism of the formation of ideas and the psychology of feelings, as the style is related to the possibilities of a language - and everyone knows that a language is genetically imprinted in people, enrooted in their national mentality.

Modern science says that there are no distinct boundaries between the mental and emotional spheres of human consciousness. This fundamental principle of science of our time offers much opportunity for researching into the nature of aesthetic phenomena and that of a piece of art.

The systemic character of a piece of art, with all its elements being interrelated, is the manifestation of this ability to embrace reality as a whole available to a talented creative person.

The difficulty of objectifying the artistic idea in the text is due to the specific character of the transformation of the invisible into visible, of hidden information into disclosed, easy to perceive. The language of fiction is defined as “a system of language means and rules < . .> making it possible to create an imaginary world in fiction, an intentional, possible world of semantics, as a specific intentional language constructed by the laws of logic, but with the inclusion of some specific laws of semantics” [5, p. 609]. And aesthetic contemplation is a specific form of a person's relation to the reality, and besides, it is a means of revealing a hidden connotation.

The Ukrainian language is considered by researchers to be highly poetic. The starting point for its poetic charm is its sign-based nature resulting from “a specific worldview encoded in the language's internal forms” [6, p. 17]. This nature was once determined by A. Potebnja who thus stated the genetic and psychologic correspondence of language and art. In the sphere of poetry, a realm of associational and metaphoric forms of thinking, there is a never-stopping process of perceiving an aesthetic object (something exterior) and creating one that will exist as a manifestation of the intentional (spiritual) essence of a person. Saying “intentional”, we mean the implementation of a volitional impulse, the creation of an object in our consciousness, an attempt to gain an insight into it, deep down, a poet's self-identification with the “aesthetic object” (“I'm a tree, I'm snow, I'm everything I love”, by Lina Kostenko) and with the world around interpreted by the creator's intention (will). The world created by means of artistic intention can actively form the collective consciousness and direct people's behaviour. In this, one can see the demiurgic function of art and the social importance of prominent personalities in art.

We integrate some intentional concepts that are essential for the Ukrainian language in order to determine, in such a way, the national spiritual space - through a set of verbal signs in which “the Ukrainian dream” is encoded. These signs are, of course, heart, soul, temple, love, fate, language, way, guelder-rose, tree, field, steppe, footpath, river, water well, eyes, etc. Used, in a certain context, by generations of folk poets as well as professional poets and writers, these words gained the status of national realities. Further on, it was as if they themselves started eradiating bunches of connotative meanings.

For example, the intentional concept HEART in Ukrainian culture can be defined as the dominating world sensing and poetic actuality with a well-known specific sense. First, in works by H. Skovoroda, and then by P Yurkevich, heart gained the status of a philological concept. In the present theory of literature, it is more and more often mentioned as an important feature of Ukrainian mentality. M. Ignatenko was one of those who studied the genesis of “the heart category” in world literature, from the Middle Ages up to Shevchenko - from the religious sensuality of medieval sacred hymns up to the psychologic lyricism of the literature of the modern period. The researcher emphasises the specific character of this concept: it is “the inaudibly audible” voice of the character's “beautiful humanism, the language of his or her conscience” [7, p. 222].

Basing on M. Ignatenko's right opinion that “we have no seminal works on the historic sources of today's Ukrainian artistic thinking”, we affirm that glorifying the HEART in Ukrainian culture is not just a tradition but something deeper. This is attested to by the Ukrainian language, as it has more hypocoristic words and suffixes than other East Slavic languages. Thus, it proves the romantic and lyrical character of Ukrainian literature. “Heart, sweetheart” is a typical image in folk songs, one cannot imagine the poetry by Shevchenko and by Ukrainian romantic poets Lesya Ukrainka and Lina Kostenko without it.

Among P. Yurkevich's ideas, we can find the following, “The heart is the focus of a person's psychic and spiritual life < . .> the place for all cognitive actions of the soul” [8, p. 74]. In a similar way, Lina Kostenko presents the symbol of “the soul as a temple”, a significant image parallel to that from a poem by P. Kulish, “My temple in my heart <...>” However, a sign of later times is the depreciation of subjective, or spiritual, reality. Because of the “technicisation of lif” and the excess of the networking form of communication, the present day is marked with wide-sweeping and uncontrolled involving the youth in the “cybersociety” making the reality seem “virtual”, and giving way to latent manipulation of souls.

The intentional concept of SOUL is broader in its sense, perhaps due to weaker religious associations. But it remains sacred in its metaphysic meaning as the innermost and most precious essence of a person. Poets, whose artistic consciousness is inextricably linked to the base of the universe, urge us to stop and think, “Well, space, computers, nucleins, that's all very fine, but what about those fairytales, and that word, and those gardens?” And we should compare:

What a world it was of ancient and Gothic times!

Now, it's becoming dull and pragmatic. [9, p. 265]

Indeed, the world ruled by mere pragmatism is lifeless and absurd, and people living there are but puppets.

By its nature, a poet's word can influence an ordinary person's self-awareness (“Reason values the exclamations of progress. // The soul guards treasures of remote ages <..>”), and reveal, as V. Symonenko puts it, “the depth of human wisdom”. The latter implies understanding of the fact that the only force capable of op-posing such dangerous phenomena of today's life as indifference and estrangement is LOVE broadly defined. Traditional is, on the one hand, likening love to light and warmth, and on the other hand, the contextual linking of this concept to those of pain and suffering. In this, the antinomy of being is actualised.

Commonly accepted is the thesis (supported, in particular, by A. Potebnja) that the language is a means and a condition of the formation of a thought. Bearing that in mind, and looking back at the rapid development of such philological subjects as speech and the problem of the text, we want to lay stress on the existence of, so to say, degrees of representation - certain levels of how fully culture reflects any life phenomenon in artistic works, whether they are philosophic, scientific, or fiction ones. These levels, or degrees, always fit their time. Indeed, in the history of any nation's culture, there are periods that, more than others, reveal this nation's “national valours” (H. Wolfflin).

For Ukrainian people, this period was the age of Ukrainian Baroque. According to D. Tschizewsky's famous statement, it constituted one of “the most important moments of the historical development of the Ukrainian national character” [10, p. 20].

The age of Baroque is one of the brightest stages of Ukrainian culture. It was the upsurge of the nation's social, political, state-forming, and spiritual activity.

Our time has something in common with the age of Baroque. As N. Konrad pointed out characterising the 17th century, “It was the epoch of the collision of the two great antinomies, the Middle Ages and the Modern Era. It was the epoch when the Middle Ages, for the last time, menacingly and magnificently, asserted themselves - now in a very special voice. It was the epoch when the new time, though incoherently, but more and more confidently, raised its head. <..> The antinomies of these epochs are absolutely unique and extremely tense. Perhaps such epochs can even be called the ganglia of history. Now, we are also living in the time of great antinomies and their collisions. And we are well aware that the new time is also very acute. That is why we can now understand Baroque, perhaps, more clearly than ever before” [11, p. 266-267].

It was written in 1974. Then, we could not even think of the real magnificence and acuteness of the events that were already coming in a noiseless step of history. So today, we can see far more clearly the antinomy of all the actualities of the recent past and the present day.

In our opinion, the phenomenon of Ukrainian Baroque, in particular its literary component, does not only offer a clue to the comprehension of the further development of Ukrainian literature, but also helps us better understand the Ukrainian national character, and answer the old and difficult question: Who are we? “What parents' children are we”?

Baroque as such cannot only be restricted to its aesthetic component. It is more than a mere coincidence that a tradition has developed of speaking of “the freedom of Baroque” (C. Gurlitt), “will to Baroque” (J. Ortega y Gasset), “the age of Baroque” (D. Tschizewsky), “Baroqueness as a state of mind” (A. Makarov), “man of Baroque”, and, consequently, Baroque “intellect”, “beauty”, “chivalry”, etc. (A. Makarov). So, Baroque is not only an aesthetic style. It is a style of thinking, behaviour, and life as well. But we are interested primarily in considering Baroque as the process of the formation of a Ukrainian creative person's style.

In the panorama of history and literature that opens to us when we view the possible further transformations of Ukrainian Baroque, we can notice that it has a number of features in common with those found in works by today's writers and poets. The Baroque way of thinking turns out to be amazingly long-lasting in Ukrainian spiritual culture. There is every reason to consider this phenomenon not only as stylistic, but mental as well. Reading closely the best Ukrainian texts reveals the Baroque perception of the world in its modern variant: “ <..> the world is composed of wonders, <..> each person retains their self but for a short time - always there is someone who has turned someone else into something” (L. Kostenko). The Baroque style in Ukrainian literature has not disappeared for ever, as some believe. Not only has it left a noticeable mark on the further development of literature - even now, it is still a living tradition. It continues to transform, in a specific way, ideologically and topically, but its underlying aesthetic features remain untouched.

Lina Kostenko once wrote lines that express her methodological and aesthetic programme. The very essence of the national artistic idea, directed to the whole world, seems to be encoded in them.

We can die, can run around in the steppe, but can't write ourselves, <..> we cannot say ourselves so loudly as to shake the world<..>

On thinking over the problem stated above, we can arrive at the conclusion: humanisation and “humanitarisation” of Ukrainian higher technical education remains a crucial need of nowadays, a need in the formation of national self-identification in the current geopolitical circumstances - especially important it is for the young. Indeed,

We have built up a society, quite a fine one.

The young recoiled from demagogy.

Black hard rock bands.

Panic in the muscles. The riot of biology.

A fissure across the souls < . .>

This is how the problem is detailed in the artistic thesaurus of Lina Kostenko, a world famous poet. Her poetry is a contribution to the awakening of national self-awareness, to the search for a person's ethnic and cultural self-identification. The same is our hypothetic model of national spirit. It enables us to oppose the changes that have been taking place throughout the recent decades, when, according to G. Lozko, due to the introduction of American methodology, “there appeared some dehumanising tendencies of humanitarian methodology: <..> under the influence of some examples of the methodology of natural science, there appeared a split between scientist-technocratic and humanitarian direction of science and education <..> that is why national existential methodology should base itself on the values and priorities that will be useful for our nation, its prosperity, wellbeing, and reproduction <...>” [12].

Література

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2. Мотрошилова Н. Новейшие тенденции развития западноевропейской философии. Философия и культура: XVII Всемирный фило-софский конгресс: проблемы, дискуссии, суждения. М.: Наука, 1997. С. 236-263.

3. Гуцало Є. Чому весь час до Бога знімається рука?.. Слово і час. 1995. № 8. С. 5-8.

4. Мейзерська Т.С. Обрії порівняльного літературознавства у контексті міжкультурної комунікації. Актуальні проблеми сучасної філології: Матеріали міжнар. науково-практ. конференції. Тирасполь: РВВ ПДУ 2004. С. 69-72.

5. Лингвистический энциклопедический словарь / гл. ред. В.Н. Ярцева. М.: Сов. энциклопедия, 1990. 685 с.

6. Потебня А.А. Слово и миф. М.: Правда, 1989. 622 с.

7. Ігнатенко М.А. Генезис художнього мислення. К.: Наукова думка, 1986. 286 с.

8. Юркевич П.Д. Вибране. К.: Абрис, 1993. 416 с.

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10. Чижевський Д. Нариси з історії філософії на Україні. Мюнхен: Український вільний університет, 1983. 170 с.

11. Конрад Н. О барокко: Избранные труды: История. М.: Наука, 1974. С. 265-267.

12. Лозко ГС. Етнодержавознавство: Філософсько-теоретичний виміриИЕ: file:///C:/Users/User/Downbads/Mandriv_2012_1_4.pdf

Коляда-Березовська Т.Ф., Зінченко О.С., Турецький В.О. Концепт-модель національного духу крізь призму української літературної традиції

Анотація. Автори аналізують найхарактерніші інтенцйні концепти, характерні для багатьох поколінь творців усної народної поезії та для письменників і поетів-професіоналів, розглядають ці концепти як маркери культури, духовності, національного духу. Йдеться про добу українського бароко як процес формування стилю української творчої особистості, зокрема барокові тенденції у віршах світової поетеси Ліни Костенко. Наголошується важливість етнокультурної самоідентифікації особистості як протидія дегуманістичним тенденціям у сучасній науці й освіті під впливом глобальних універсалістських доктрин.

Ключові слова: інтенційний концепт, концепт-модель, національний дух, етнокультура, інтенційна сутність лю-дини, феномен українського бароко.

concept national ukrainian literary

Коляда-Березовская Т. Ф., Зинченко Е. С., Турецкий В. А. Концепт-модель национального духа сквозь призму украинской литературной традиции

Аннотация. Авторы анализируют интенциональные концепты, которые характерны как для многих поколений создателей устной народной поэзии, так и для профессиональных писателей и поэтов, что позволяет рассматривать эти концепты в качестве маркеров культуры, духовности, национального духа. Речь идет о периоде украинского барокко как процессе формирования стиля украинской творческой личности, в частности о барочных тенденциях в творчестве поэтессы Лины Костенко. Акцентируется важность этнокультурной самоидентификации личности как противостояние дегуманистическим тенденциям в современной науке и образовании под влиянием глобальных универсалистских доктрин.

Ключевые слова: интенциональный концепт, концепт-модель, национальный дух, этнокультура, интенциональная сущность человека, феномен украинского барокко.

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