Main concepts of Mykhailo Starytsky’s and Genrik Senkevich’s historiosophy: the comparative aspect

Abstract

Introduction. The second half of the nineteenth century in Ukraine is marked by emergence of the Ukrainian idea philosophy as the theoretical aspect of the Ukrainian national renaissance. Historiosophy has determined a direction of the Ukrainian culture development during definite period. That process has taken place as a part of the whole Slavic one and all the European movement wider that has been directed to the cognition of the past for awareness of essence and sense of its national being, recognition of the ethnic identity.

Purpose of the article are studying of the function of the historiosophic conception in formation of the ideological discourse in historical prose of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, explaining of the significance of such literature in formation of the national-political ideologies and programs of the Ukrainian and Polish social-political developments. Research objects are Mykhailo Starytsky’s trilogy «Bogdan Khmelnytsky» and Genrik Senkevich’s novel «With Fire and Sword».

Results. Illustrating through the example of the patriarchal human’s ideals the prosaists strived to reveal opposite values of the individual and every single person’s psychology. Preference for the general social over individual, frontier between the good and evil, truth and untruth, freedom and lack of freedom, rise of spiritual and moral collapse are accented in the novels. The base identity of the analyzed literary works is found: writers simulate the formula of the eternal mental trouble, permanent endeavour to progress for the truth and honor which is individual, collective and national. Actually it has formed Mykhailo Starytsky’s and Genrik Senkevich’s literary vision of history.

Originality. The article deals with complex analysis of Mykhailo Starytsky’s trilogy «Bogdan Khmelnytsky» and Genrik Senkevich’s novel «With Fire and Sword» for researching of the specific of writers’ literary historicism.

Conclusion. Mykhailo Starytsky’s and Genrik Senkevich’s historiosophy is a specific synthesis of the historiographical and historiosophical principles by the anteriority of the subjective and evaluative base in interpretation of the historic events. The attention and respect to the fact and the source base are common for writers. But they have primary interest to the anthropological space of the history, personality’s function, dramaticism of her being in the context of nationwide drama or tragedy. That is factor not as factological as spiritual-psychological.