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"RECOLLECTIONS" BY DMYTRO PAVLYCHKO: AUTHOR'S VISION OF UKRAINIAN HISTORY OF THE 20th CENTURY
The article explores D.Pavlychko's "Recollections" (2015) as a hybrid, synthetic generic form featuring the author's personal memories and experiences as a means to create a holistic, panoramic vision of Ukraine's tragic history from the 1940-ies to present. Historical figures of the century, be it writers, politicians or civic leaders, as well as numerous references to crucial moments of Ukrainian history shape out a dynamic and eventful landscape of contemporary cultural and political life shaped out with Pavlychko's well-known creative artistry. Specific attention is paid to the author's own concept of Ukrainian history as presented through his interpretations of its most controversial, polemical and yet unexplored pages. The narrative structure of "Recollections" is examined within the context of the auhtor's self-presentation strategy aimed at creating a harmonized, concentrated and integral narrative voice striving to disengage from subjective interpretation in favor of more balanced analytical approach. A sample of modern memoirs, Pavlychko's "Recollections" arise at the joint of fact and fiction, documentary and artistic v'sion, opinion-based writing and historical analysis, thus contributing to the modern interest in non-fiction, specifically, in the contradictory history of the XX century as represented through the lives of its most prominent representatives. The seemingly fragmented structure of Pavlychko's "Recollections" encourage the readers to apply an active reception strategy to reconstruct an integral and detailed panorama of Ukraine's tragic history throughout the XX century.
Keywords
memoirs, recollections, aspect, diaries, letters, interpretation, canon,
genre and stylistic specificity
AUTHORS
Olga O. Stadnichenko,
Associate Prof., PhD Zaporizhzhya National University, Zaporizhzhya 66, Zhukovsky Street, Zaporizhzhya, 69600, Ukraine stadnichenkoo-1 @ukr.net
Gennady A. Senkevich,
Associate Prof., PhD University of Customs and Finance, Dnepr 2/4, V. Vernadsky Street, Dnepr, 49000, Ukraine gen.senkevich@gmail.com
1. Introduction
The interest towards non-fiction in Ukraine, as well as in the rest of the world, is caused primarily by the fact that it seems to deliver an undoubtedly realistic (although inevitably altered due to subjectivity) depiction of life produced by direct witnesses to the events described.
Thus, as the critics state, the fiction based on artistic modelling of the reality gives way to the documentaries and fact-based narratives, which is specifically relevant for the present days, when documents and fact-checking serve as a potent ideological myth-debunking tool.
One of the most prominent scholars in the field of memoir studies, O.Halych, points out that "in comparison to recent high school or secondary school history books, document-based narratives, specifically the memoirs, deliver much more precise and emotionally loaded depiction of the long gone past, assesses the real political figures, writers and actors of various periods (both relatively calm and dramatical, even tragical ones) of our history. The well-known definition of the memoirs as "the third-level history" refers to the concept of the real-life social process as "the first-level history", its official depiction as the second-level one, while the nonbiased vision of a memoirist or a biographer stand out as the third one» [Halych, 2001].
According to M.Kotsiubynska, «the fictional documentary comprising the whole scope of the Ukrainian cultural existence, can also serve as both the toolkit and the documentary source for literary studies, that is, for innovative reconceptualization of the Ukrainian artistic heritage. It helps searching for unknown or less knows facts and shaping out unorthodox point of view by encouraging to re-read our overtly hyper-socialized and emasculated classics. This not yet explored "human space", as well as a sincere, unhackneyed intonation help us to neutralize the well-worn trivial glaze, the generalized obtrusive pathos, the canonical essence corroding the official Ukrainian Social Realistic (and otherwise) literary studies focused mostly on personalities» [Kotsiubinska, 2008].
To support M.Kotsiubinska's point, we'd like to highlight that the memoirs serve as a valid maturity marker for both the individual and the society. While the potential of the documentaries is vastly superior to that of fiction, it's the author's skill that matters critically. Much depends on the narrator's ability not only to describe the facts but also to disengage from them in order to grasp their essence in detail.
«In fictional documentaries, two timeframes, two reactions and two visions collide - the immediate, transitory one, and that of the past, though checked up by present. [...] The core of the genre stands out as a peculiar tandem of history and memory. The memory is alive, it presents itself as an eternal present and sticks to something extremely detailed - human images, gestures, moods; the history tends to abstract, to highlight the interconnections and interdependences between people, things and events [Kotsiubinska, 2008]».
The decision to write or publish one's own memoirs usually depends on various existential, social and political circumstances. Those factors also define the nature of the memoirs: personal or social one.
Among the works marked as exemplary for the genre, one can find such outstanding samples of the turn of the XXI century memoirs left by prominent figures of the time as I.Dziuba's "Final Straight Memories and Reflections", L.Taniuk's "The Life Line", O.Honchar's "The Diary", H.Kostiuk's "Greetings and Farewells", M.Rudenko's "Life Itself is the Greatest Wonder", R.Ivanychuk's "Bless the God, My Soul", L.Krushelnytska's "Cutting the Woods", M.Kotsiubinska's "The Book of Memories" etc.
«Hardly is there a genre more frail than memoirs: as soon as one starts writing, one exposes oneself before the reader just like on an X-ray projection, with no chance to hide or sugar cover; the author becomes a protagonist. That is why the genre is perceived as risky, and, maybe, for that very reason the Ukrainian memoiristics is at best in its infancy» [Shchyrytsa, 2016].
This article explores Dmytro Pavlychko's "Recollection" as a synthetic kind of biographic narrative typical for the XX century memoirs. While the author takes pains to look back at his life from the early days, i.e., mid-1940-ies, to the current events, he simultaneously reflects upon his own interactions with many of his outstanding contemporaries: writers, politicians and civic leaders. The article's relevance is underpinned by the immense attention paid by modern scholars (O.Halych, T.Gazha, A.Ilkiv, V.Kuzmienko, G.Mazokha, K.Tanchyn) to non-fiction focused on writers and artists, specifically to the texts reflecting the tensions and controversies of the eventful XX century through the eyes of the outstanding personalities of the time and positioning these personalities, be they authors or characters, as hostages of historical circumstances.
The article's aim is to analyze the reception of the XX century history and its impact upon the individual as procured and caused by the memoirs; to highlight the author's subjectivity in interpreting the historical facts and depicting his interactions with the contemporaries, i.e. creative intellectuals and government officials.
2. Results and Discussion
As the summary to Pavlychko's "Recollections" points out, «The outstanding Ivan Franko's disciple and follower, Dmytro Pavlychko could have described himself with these simple but genial words: «Whatever he possessed in life, he gave up / for a single idea /; for this idea he burnt, and blazed, and suffered, / and worked hard». Emotionally intense, aesthetically saturated and fertile in information, his "Recollections" introduce the reader not only to the bits of the author's ever-changing and unsettling personal life, but to the dramatic image of Ukraine in the XX and at the turn of the XXI century. Among the numerous portraits of his teachers and friends sketched by the author in his memoirs, one can come across the real creators of Ukrainian culture and nationhood».
D.Pavlychko's "Recollections" is a publicist documentary. Each part of this seemingly fragmented narrative is in fact adding to the general picture, shaping out the author's portrait as a poet and a civic leader and highlighting the most important agents of influence upon his undoubtedly outstanding identity. The author's individual perspective is but a means to cast a look upon the tragical history of the XX century's Ukraine as a whole.
The book opens by the chapter entitled "Stopchativ" and devoted to the earliest days of the author's childhood spent in a picturesque West Ukrainian village under the Polish rule. The childhood memories provide the keys to understanding the very core of the author's individuality. He dives deep into family history, recollecting family traditions, specifically their common love for singing Ukrainian folk songs: "My fathers' songs are my first lessons on Ukrainian history. From those times on, I would forever remember such
songs as "When the Cossack went to war", "Cossack's leaving, maiden's crying", "Where the Yatran meanders tightly", "Galicians growing sad", "Red arrowwood" etc. Interestingly, my father's company used to sing songs from along the Dnieper Ukraine with the greatest pleasure and inspiration...» [Pavlychko, 2015].
Another touching moment described by D.Pavlychko refers to their family tradition to read aloud T.Shevchenko's and I.Franko's poems every Sunday after the church. This tradition was introduced by Pavlychko's mother who, despite her own illiteracy, had a taste for poetry and enjoyed listening to her children reading aloud. "While reciting "To those dead and alive.", - the author recollects, - I would often spot tears in my mother's eyes, and those tears would tell me that Shevchenko's words aimed at something really painful in her soul. I failed to understand this pan-Ukrainian pain as a child, but felt it emotionally as something of the highest possible value for my mother and, consequently, to me" [Pavlychko, 2015].
From Dmytro Pavlychko's memories, it becomes clearly visible, that despite the Polish rule, the general family atmosphere was pro-Ukrainian. Some episodes recollected by the author have become know only recently, since it used to be impossible to publish something of that kind under the Soviet regime. In particular, Pavlychko recalls the tragic details of Galicia's invasion by Soviet troops: "In the 1939, when "the savers from the East" had entered the village, my father hung a blue-and-yellow banner under our fir-covered roof. The banner was immediately removed by the NKVD officers that followed the Red Army soldiers, and my father feared he would be reported to the Soviets as "nationalist" [Pavlychko, 2015].
From the "Stopchativ" chapter we also get to know about some important episodes from Pavlychko's biography, i.e. the story of his brother Peter arrested by Gestapo in January 1944 and the family's reaction to this most mournful event: "Under tortures, one of Stopchativ cryptos had reported by brother as OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) member. He was executed in Kolomyia January 26, 1944. In April 1945, when the German invaders left Kolomyia, and the Soviet troops had been still on the way, my father together with the parents of the other executed exhumated the grave and brought home my murdered brother, tied with barbed wire» [Pavlychko, 2015].
According to the author, it was his brother's personal example t hat set him on the way he'd taken. Following Peter's tragedy, 16 years old Dmytro Pavlychko wrote one of his earliest poems entitled "The Vow" and claiming to revenge his brother's death. The text of this poem recently found in the author's archive was published as late as 2009. Another poetic follow-up to the tragedy, «The Bonfire», was published back in the Soviet period. This second poem also referred to Dmytro's brother, bur the fact of his OUN membership was not mentioned. The author claims to have rewritten this poem after Ukraine got its independence: "The voice of my consciousness is my brother's voice, and this voice speaks not only of hatred to enemies, but also of painful, almost remorseful disdain to turn-skins, of shame for his nation» [Pavlychko, 2015].
In D.Pavlychko's "Recollections", as well as in the majority of non-fiction writings, the confessionary modality in explaining the author's ideological and personal motivations often ends up in a certain self-justification. These attempts, though mostly of personal nature, contribute immensely to constructing the integral, panoramic view of the age, its historical events and personalities. In M.Bogachevska-Khomyak's memoirs we come across the statement that D.Pavlychko "was never a true Soviet man, but he knew the system's flaws and how to use them" [Shchyrytsa, 2016]. Those "system's flaws" have been recently brought to light by Pavlychko himself in his time- and self-reflecting recollections. In order to preserve the objectivity and to stay close to truth, as M.Kotsiubinska points out, "the full immersion into the eerie reality, the historical and personal context accuracy free of black-or-white dichotomies, ranting, nihilism and rhetoric instead of analytics is necessary to keep away both from sugar covering and black painting the real situation and the real person in favour of modern schemes" [Kotsiubinska, 2008].
In D.Pavlychko's "Recollections", the antiseptic version of history comes to life through the variety of forms and means, be it emotional impression, personal reaction, notes to himself, analytical reports, author's reflections etc. All those elements contribute to a complex panoramic view of the environment the author used to exist; his portrait, as well as the depiction of the age, is being constructed out of his reactions to various situations.
Every writer's memoirs usually tend to show the seemingly well-known figure from an unexpected point of view, add brightness and accuracy to the description of the author's identity. The said is true for Pavlychko's memoirs as well. Some details from his recollections, namely from the times of his youth spent under occupation, construct a complex, multifaceted image. In the chapter entitled "Yabluniv" the author recalls his being sent, due to his father's financial troubles, to a Polish school in Yabluniv. He found himself to be the only Ukrainian among the Polish and Jewish students. Even at the first year of his study, little Dmytro refused to recite the poem in Polish about his being a Pole: "All of a sudden, I decided that, since I was not a Pole, I was not obliged to recite. Mrs. Weber took her iron ruler and spanked me ten times across the palm. My hand was in pain. Blood throbbed in my veins. Anyway, I'm thankful to my teacher for this lesson. Her iron ruler had beaten my Ukrainian identity deep into my veins, to the very heart of mine» [Pavlychko, 2015]. Such memories provide us with a deeper understanding of Pavlychko's personality construction under various circumstances.
The quest for identity usually starts from home. In Pavlychko's memoirs, home stands forth as a place that shapes one's outlook, one's character and personal traits. The village of Yabluniv, the place he spent his school years in, is home to many outstanding personalities that proved themselves in various situations. According to the author, Yabbluniv had secured its place in history as a place of massacre committed by NKVD officers to the remnants of URA (Ukrainan Rebel Army) troops. It was only after Ukraine gained its independence that "the traces of the dreadful crimes of NKVD butchers have been exposed - human remnants in the well close to the building MSS (Ministry of State Security) used to occupy; graves hidden in the nearby gardens. The investigation of the exhumated bodies proved that those people were tortured, their bones broken, eyes gouged, bellies cut open. I knew for sure the butchers that had left those traces in Yabluniv. Their names are: Sukorin, Kartavets, Didenko. Those were sadists torturing the URA wounded and their relatives. In our history, Yabluniv stands close to Demyaniv Laz und Bykivnya - the places where sacred blood was shed for Ukrainian ideals" [Pavlychko, 2015].
Few are aware that Dmytro Pavlychko's biography contains pages censored out by the Soviet regime due to its hostility towards liberation movements participants. The chapter entitled "In URA and in prison" bear an emotionally charged description of 16 years old Dmytro Pavlychko joining the URA. Obviously, he was personally motivated to do so to avenge his brother Peter's death. Dmytro Vasylyovych recalls his parents bidding him a tearful farewell.
Pavlychko's confessions debunk the distorted Soviet version of the Ukrainian history by revealing its real, tragic nature. Young Dmytro's memory spots out the portraits and the nicknames of his comrades and brothers in arms, the rebel sotnia (company), chota (platoon) and roy (squad) commanders, each of them described with great respect. Pavlychko notes that his staying with the URA's youth sotnya was short-termed: on the eve of the cleansing expected from "the Red Broom", the commanders decided to send the young men back home. So, Pavlychko had to surrender together with his comrades. However, prior to leaving, he lent his blue jacket to his commander Sorokaty and it wasn't until after he got reasonably far from his troops that he remembered he had left his documents and poems in the jacket's pocket.
"Some days after, - Dmytro Pavlychko recalls, - I was arrested by NKVD officers, the so-called "paydioshniks" (from Russian "paydiom", "move on"): "You're under arrest, you
Bandera's scum!» [Pavlychko, 2015]. Together with the rest of the prisoners, he was escorted to Yabluniv ale-house used as a prison. Pavlychko's recollections would surely appeal to the reader's morale: "The former ale-house turned into prison was full of people - villagers from Kosma, Bereziv, Lucha. One was taken directly from home as a supposed helper to the URA, the other was caught while cutting woods, yet another was stopped right upon the road. Not a single URA soldier was present, but through the window we could see corpses brought from the villages. They lay in the blood puddles. The prisoners whispered that some of them had been brought there after the battle - those were heavily wounded URA combatants finished off by headshots. My consciousness was burning. I was not just in the prison, I was in the cell facing the executions, I hallucinated that some of those victims moaned and pled for water!» [Pavlychko, 2015].
The author's creative artistry combined with document-based accuracy brings forth a vivid recollection of his dreadful stay in NKVD prison, full of facts and details, such as names, locations and roles assigned to each executive. He recalls understanding, ever since the first interrogation, that NKVD knew nothing of his joining the URA sotnia. He was asked whether he had taken part in a youth organization supposedly located in Stopchativ and supporting Bandera's troops. Young Dmitro denies this charge as totally made up by the investigator. And so, the tortures begin: «Criminal investigator Kartavtsev, deputy head of Yabluniv district NKVD department Sukorin and the head of the department Didenko himself had bent me across the chair, belly upwards, and started beating me with a ramrod. I lost my consciousness. They would bring me to life with cold water and would beat me up till I bled. I kept denying the charge, for they asked of something I had never done in my life!» [Pavlychko, 2015].
These recollections had been put to paper only in 1999, ever since the Communist regime's crimes upon establishing Soviet government in Galicia were exposed. Not until then, it could have been possible to reveal that the reason behind Pavlychko's torturing were the false testimonies of Vasyl Babiuk arrested and tortured prior to Pavlychko. Pavlychko was interrogated in front of Babiuk but kept denying the charge. He was consequently beaten up to bloodshot yes, so that he couldn't even get back to his cell. He pleaded Vasyl to take his testimonies back. The tortures went on - his neck beaten with an iron rod; his fingers squashed in a doorjamb. For a brief moment, he cracked and started supporting Babiuk's false testimonies. «Hardly is there a thing more dreadful than self-denunciation!» [Pavlychko, 2015].
Under the other prisoners' pressure, with them shouting "Tell the truth", Pavlychko denies his previous testimonies and gets beaten up once more, this time for refusal to denunciate himself and to put blame upon his comrades. Pavlychko marks that there was a certain strategy in NKVD officers' actions: "They wanted to use the arrested youth as a means to digging deeper into the underground resistance movement, to find out who of our parents or co-villagers supports OUN and the URA; however, it's where they stumbled upon an impenetrable wall. The only thing they had beaten out of us was this fake about Stopchativ, Utorop, Kovaliv boys gathering together in the evening and communicating with the URA" [Pavlychko, 2015].
From D.Pavlychko's memoirs we find out he was transferred to Kolomyia prison and then to Stanislav prison located in the cells of the local MSS department. The author recollects his Stanislav prison experience to reveal the dreadful spirit of time and to debunk the myths about the Soviet regime's good intentions toward Galicia inhabitants: "I found myself among the crowd of prisoners roughly divided into two groups. From the one side, the criminals, mostly Russians; from the other, the URA soldiers, Ukrainian intelligentsia, professors, priests. [...] Up above, new interrogations awaited for me; down below, in the cell, I was humiliated and scoffed by the rascals who had managed to get from Russia to Stanyslav and to end up in the prison for murders and robbery. [...] Life in the underground
prison cell (and there were from forty to sixty of us altogether) had scared me to death. We used to sleep side by side on the floor, and the cell was so cramped that whenever one of us turned around, all the rest had to turn around too» [Pavlychko, 2015].
The investigators' violence and their deviant sophistication in tortures never ceases to amaze the author. Each of them used to have his own persuader. I.e., investigator Soskin, upon having learned that Pavlychko used to attend the gymnasium, "had ordered me to write a draft of a love letter addressed to a certain Galician woman he was supposedly in love with» [Pavlychko, 2015]. However, what Pavlychko got instead of gratitude, was the investigstor rushing at him angrily: "As soon as I finished my speech, the investigator hit me with his fist in the face and shouted: - You liar! [...] He stepped upon a parquet, and it leaped out. He caught this oaken plank on the fly and started beating me up violently at will, shouting the same: - You liar!» [Pavlychko, 2015]. Finally, the investigator gave up, since all the teenagers arrested under the Youth Sotnya case denied their charge, and only denunciated themselves under tortures.
This story has got an unexpected finale: as soon as the news of Bandera's Youth Sotnya exposed reached Moscow, a special commission arrived to justify upon the case. The boys got interrogated once more, and everyone reported tortures - as it turned out, exactly what the commission wanted to hear. «Later on, I found out that they got paid a bonus of 800 rubles per each arrestee» [Pavlychko, 2015]. Eight month prison stay, full of tortures and fake testimonies, ended with every single one of them sent back home in Spring 1946.
When recollecting those horrible days, D.Pavlychko stresses out, that "The greatest shame I've ever known in my life was when I had to lie during face-to-face encounters. I paid a high price for disorienting the investigators and thus for letting the take the wrong pass inevitably taking them to prison. A turn unheard-of: NKVD officers charged by the Soviet Court Martial for torturing the minors. They got imprisoned, but the Soviet bodies kept silent about it. "Forget whatever happened here", they told me in the court" [Pavlychko, 2015].
The author's confessions upon his challenging path to adulthood are strikingly sincere. It was hardly possible to bring oneself to confess like that until recent. Today, when the Ukrainians tend to learn more and more of the troublesome events of our history, Dmytro Pavlychko's memoirs correspond fairly to what the Ukrainian history scholars have revealed so far about the 1940-ies.
Its only in 1999 that Dmytro Pavlychko comes to write these sincere lines explaining a lot about his identity construction and the ways he had taken. As he himself point out, the life lessons learned from youth have been influencing him since then: «There were many significant or didactic episodes in my life. But those eight months spent in prison have taught me more than the whole years of the university studies. That was harsh knowledge of rise and fall of human spirit, of pure truth so invisible one can hardly find it in one's own soul. That was how I learned to respect and to hate myself, to pity the weak and to love the strong-hearted people [Pavlychko, 2015].
Just like in the majority of the memoirs, the dominant problems raised in Pavlychko's "Recollenctions" are of moral and existential nature. The book explores the complex cases of an individuality's moral choice, one's ability and capability to raise against the situation or to succumb to it, or maybe just to keep one's face and morality under pressure. What we observe in Pavlychko's memoirs is the individual struggling against the totalitarian system, its rules and dogmas, ripping the harsh consequences of one's own struggle.
Pavlychko's recollections of his staying with the IRA and later on in prison, fill in neatly into the general puzzle, each piece of which explores a certain significant episode from his experience and consequently contributes to a holistic vision of his life. These interconnections come into view most obviously in the chapters describing Pavlychko's entering the university.
"I passed all the exams successfully, getting "good" and "excellent" for all the subjects except the German language. - Pavlychko recalls. - Upon the interview, the German language examiner told me quite open-heartedly: "I see you know German just as well as I do, but I have to put you a satisfactory mark. No Zakhidnyaks (Western Ukrainians) are allowed to the university this year!" "Now that's unfair!" - I burst out. "I know, - the professor continued, - but I can't help it. Go to Lviv!" [Pavlychko, 2015]. No further explanations followed. That sounded like a verdict subject to no appeal. It was obvious that the KGB took the university enrollment campaign under control, making academic knowledge less important than social background or even geographic location of the applicant's birthplace and thus ruining the lives of the many.
Upon entering Lviv University he was sent to instead of Kiev University by the Ministry of Education's decree, D.Pavlychko immediately got under Comsomol organization's pressure. When accused of writing poetry by one of his co-students, he responded with a poetic line: "I know what to write for sure. / I sing no songs of joy or love, / no songs like yours, of spring horizons, / but songs of harsh life and of blood / shed on the grounds!... " [Pavlychko, 2015], alluding undoubtedly at the murdered URA warriors.
It is clearly visible from Pavlychko's recollections that the author has got his own vision of the Ukrainian history and interprets it through his personal point of view and through his immense life experience comparable to that of V.Lys's "Jakob's Anniversary" title character who not only managed to survive several regimes, several states with their respectful ideologies but struggled hard to keep his identity for himself. In the chapter entitled "In the Beginning", D.Pavlychko responds - or even confesses before the reader -to accusations of opportunism both in his life and his poetry charged by his contemporaries: "Even if I had posed as a Soviet poet, it was not the popularity and fame that I craved, but the ability to breathe the national ideal I inherited from birth deep into the Communist phraseology. I was under Shevchenko's and Franko's literary influence. I defined my mission as a struggle for Ukrainian language, culture, and history by means of that very Communist dream. Was I sincere when cooperating with the Soviet regime? I was, though not always. I kept constantly breaking through this very false behavior pattern the system of totalitarian servitude demanded from me, I never ceased to write poetry deeply rooted spiritually and thematically into my first verses miraculously discovered upon my 80th birthday" [Pavlychko, 2015].
Each of the episodes lets the reader assess the facts described, compare them to those already known of a person or an event in a wider artistic or social and political context. The author's vision and interpretation of the past experiences presented in "The Recollections" bears both educatory and artistic sense. As M.Kotsiubinska points out, "As a marginal phenomenon, the fictional documentary in all the variety of its forms is vivid and multifaceted, stuffed full of inimitable realia and bright personal impressions, and leaves behind the feeling of authenticity mixed with fictional artistry" [Kotsiubinska, 2008].
3. Conclusion
The memoirs tend to bring to life the whole existential space surrounding the author, to brighten every single detail of his or her life, to resurrect the people and to reenact the events around the author's figure. Pavlychko's "Recollections" introduce the reader to the gallery of writers, politicians and civic leaders he managed to cross paths with during his eventful life, many of them subject to harsh judgements. Among the prominent figures featured in D.Pavlychko's "Recollections" one can name writers A.Malyshko, M.Rylsky, O.Honchar, O.Dovzhenko, Iryna Vilde, M.Bazhan, G.Kochur, M.Rudnytsky, V.Pidpaly, O.Kolomiyets etc.
A lot of attention is paid to the political figures of the XX and the XXI centuries the author got to know in person. Celebrities like P.Shelest, M.Gorbachyov, E.Shevarnadze, Yaroslava Stetsko, V.Durdynets, O.Yemets, E.Stakhiv have been described so vividly one can almost see them moving like on documentary shots, reenacting most significant episodes of their time. This sharp and precise vision is skillfully combined with the scope of existential problems, self-analysis, confessions and motivations one usually looks for in the works of fiction.
The author is overtly emotional in describing the most important moments of his life. He addresses the contemporary state of affairs with the following assessment: "I am sick and tired indeed of my chief-seeking nation, quarreling constantly and being incapable of finding a true leader not because we don't have one but because each and every of my brothers wants to be a Hetman for himself. However, I am happy to belong to the Ukrainian nation and spare curses for even the most repulsive features of its leaders, for I know for sure how long and tiresome the escapement from slavery can be" [Павличко, 2015].
The seemingly fragmented structure of D.Pavlychko's memoirs stimulates the reader to assess analytically the information presented and hence that to jig the pieces of the puzzle together in a sort of a holistic panoramic picture of life as it is. The foreground of this picture, is, undoubtedly, occupied by the author's figure: his emotions and experiences, rises and falls, good and bad lucks, prospects and realities, friends and foes, dreams and actions present themselves in the historical context casting a long-lasting effect upon an individual. The book closes up with an emotional confession: "Way back into my life I couldn't and wouldn't have imagined myself as I am today. However, this small work of mine tells me that throughout my whole existence, since the very beginning, I used to be - for better or for worse - mostly myself. Just like I am now" [Pavlychko, 2015].
Based on the results of our analysis, Pavlychko's pentalogy can undoubtedly be defined as a sample of modern non-fiction, though heavily fictionalized due to the author's professional background. Thus, Pavlychko's "Recollections" would perfectly fit the expectations of the majority of modern readers tired of low quality fictional plots, artificial images and distorted reality.
At the same time, Pavlychko's "Recollections" comprise the whole range of tropes and devices inherent to memoirs and biographic writing modes: existential problematics, confessional modality rendering specific mood, overt subjectivity, specific retroactive stream of consciousness, plasticity, dynamics, cliffhangers and dramatic episodes, portraits, reminiscences, past events analysis from today's point of view, a certain narrative coherence etc.
All in all, D.Pavlychko's "Recollections" can be defined as a work of both art and historical analysis at the confluence of fact and fiction; a hybrid synthetical generic phenomenon merging didactics and historical material into a breathtaking plot and standing out at the cusp of past and present, history and modernity, memory and document, generalization and fact.
REFERENCES
Halych, O. (2001 ), Ukrainian non fiction literature on the edge of centuries: specifics, origin, prospects.
Alma-mater, Luhansk, Ukraine - p.5. Kotsiubynska, M. (2008), History orchestrated on human voices. Existential meaning of artistic documentaries for contemporary literature, Vydavnychyi dim «Kyievo-Mohylianska akademiia», Kyiv, Ukraine, - p. 20-33. Pavlychko, D. (2015), Recollections, Yaroslaviv val, Kyiv, Ukraine. - p. 3-485. Shchyrytsia, P. (2016), Memories that make the past modern. - Literary Ukraine, № 42 (5671), р. 3.
