“THIS IS A SYNTHESIS IN THE SUPREME
UNDERSTANDING OF THIS WORD”:
IVAN FRANKO ON THE WAY TO MODERNISM

Volume 62-1 (2022)

M. І. Lehkyi
PhD Ivan Franko Institute of the National Academy of Science, Lviv

Summary

The article considers the prose of Ivan Franko of the late XIX – early
XX centuries. in the context of the processes of renewal of Ukrainian literature. In the
prose works of the writer are clearly visible features of such stylistic varieties of
modernism as decadence, symbolism, impressionism, expressionism, surrealism. In
many ways, modernism seems to return (at another level of development) to the “old”
romanticism, including the independence of the individual from the social conditions
of its existence, the abstraction of the individual from the general, the unusualness
and singularity of this individual, the departure from imitation and copying. In the art
of the fin de sciècle era, there are demands to make a radical break with the previous
tradition, confrontations and disputes between the old and the new – often provocative
and unexpected, self-conscious in opposition to the past. In addition, a deep
immersion in the psychology of the character, studying the motives of his behavior,
which required Franko’s “scientific realism”, logically provoked the writer to seek
new means of glorifying mental processes. The old Franko program of “scientific
realism” also became the basis for the creation of completely modern works.
However, according to the writer, the main task of the artist now is not analysis, but
synthesis, ie the ability to create a whole of disparate phenomena, imbued with one
spirit, revived by a new idea. Visible signs of synthesis in Franko’s prose were a
powerful philosophical current, a tendency to operate with global abstract categories
(good – evil), to parabolize the artistic structure, to boldly use the means of artistic
conventionality, fiction, unreal, lyricism and dramatization of epic text. These features
are characteristic of such works as “Khmelnytskyi and the Fortune Teller”, “Terrain
at the Foot”, “Under the Guard”, “Fatherland”, “How Yura Shikmanyuk Brow
through Cheremosh”, “Jay’s wing”, “Big Noise”, “Son of Ostap”, “Like a dream”,
“Dryad”, “Hutsul king” and others. Ivan Franko’s prose at the turn of the century fit
into the canon of Ukrainian modernism.
Key words: synthesis, modernism, decadence, symbolism, impressionism,
expressionism, surrealism.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/2520-6346.1(62).75-86

References

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