Vasil Stus as an artistic image in poetry by Ivan Svitlychny

Abstract

.    Ivan Svitlychny (1929-1922) and Vasyl Stus (1938-1985) - prominent figures of Ukrainian culture, poets, scholars, human rights activists, fighters for freedom of Ukraine, political prisoners of the USSR times. The relationship of dissident artists is a multifaceted problem, one of its sides is the artistic image of one friend in the poetry of another. In the works of both artists there are works where the comrade becomes a literary hero. The subject of the study in this article is Vasyl Stus as an artistic image in the poetry of Ivan Svitlychny. Object of study are poems «Archimedes», «Rilsky octaves», lyrical works «Loneliness», «Parnas», «Guilt», «To V. Stus».

The image of Vasyl Stus in the poems of Ivan Svitlychny «Archimedes (after Pluzhnikov’s «Galileo») », «Rilsky octaves» is summarized to the symbol.

In the poem «Archimedes» I. Svitlychny seems to classify people of the era of totalitarianism by the criterion: the place of man in the struggle for spiritual values. The first are the «islands» that try to stand aside when the continent of spirituality collapses. The second is a tribe of saffron, those who betray their holy shrines and destroy them. The author singles out the third type - people standing on the guard of spirituality. Only here author mentions the names, and the first one is Stus.

The poem «Rylsky octaves» has a sarcastic mood. The poet-scholar highlights the choice of Soviet poets who escaped tragedies that Ukraine has experienced, or even glorified its enemies. I. Svitlychny affirms that «pure Kalynets and Stus’ muse» is a true criterion of art. «Kalyntsi and Stusy» is the leading image of the poem. The work is imbued with a deep respect for invincible artists, the author is confident that they will gain glory in time that will tell the truth about everyone.

If the poem depicts the image of Vasyl Stus as a symbol, then the lyrical works individualize him, illuminate the existential. In the poetic legacy of I. Svitlychny we see two verses with epigraphs from Stus («Loneliness», «Guilt»), sonnet «Parnas» with the image of the poet, and poem «To V. Stus».

The poem «Loneliness « expresses the finality of the prisoner’s situation, his loneliness, spatial blockade. In the sonnet «Parnas» the hero-prisoner of I. Svitlychny finds an existential exit from the borderline situation of imprisonment and abandonment. In his imagination, his friends-poets come to him and read their poems. V. Stus was one of the comrades who saved his soul even at a distance, with his beautiful verses, his unbroken existence.

The sonnet «Guilt» contains an epigraph from the poem of V. Stus «Streams»: «The great sin on my heart I wear ...». The guilt is multifaceted, complex psychologically and philosophically. I. Svitlychny raises the idea of justice, names the crimes of a totalitarian regime in the USSR.

In the poem «To V. Stus» I. Svitlychny continues dialogue with the friend. In the poem «Streams» V. Stus wrote about guilt before a woman, mother, took upon himself the sin of unhappiness that his fate brought her. I. Svitlychny names the real reason: love is stolen not by those who truly love, but by those who have unjustly condemned and imprisoned him.

A portrait of an indifferent crowd, composed by people of the mass (H. Ortega-i-Gasset), is presented. The spiritual drama of the Ukrainian dissidents of the sixties is expressed through the image of the abyss, the poet compares the eyes of the crowd with the abyss as a mirror of the collective unconsciousness. The image of Vasyl Stus in the poem-dedication appears existentially. The reader manifests the essence of the inner life of man, his intimate feelings, experiences, values. The author writes You with a capital letter, as a manifest to the friendly closeness of their relations and, at the same time, a deep respect for the friend’s personality. In this close and mighty You the poet feels suffering; psychological, intimate injury; hostile siege, in which the soul was wounded. He admires the courage and firmness of his friend, knowing that the values that the comrade preaches are unswerving.

The author of the poetry-devotion has no illusions, he says the strict truth: in the near future there will be no change for the better, but there will be new trials, new ways of enslavement. Instead of respect for devotion to the truth, the dissident poet will meet the bullying of the crowd, but will accept them as calmly as he would have received fame. Self-sufficiency, confidence in the truthfulness of the case you protect, inner superiority in relations with the crowd are the features of «You», discovered by I. Svitlychny.

I. Svitlychny, as well as T. Schevchenko in his poem “Dream”, depicts the Russian soil, prisons, camps, where people, who fight for freedom, suffer. The hero, created by both poets, is a man, who keeps the freedom in his soul and doesn’t obey the physical force of the authorities and the dark psychological strength of the crowd.

The image of Vasyl Stus in the poetry of Ivan Svitlychny is the embodiment of the highest virtues of a Ukrainian man, a high criterion for assessing others, a friend, a like-minded, a person with a complex inner world, an artist whose poetic word can save from solitude. For I. Svitlychny in his artistic texts, Vasyl Stus is a hope for Ukraine, a symbol of freedom.

The poetic of the image is characterized by scientific accuracy of characteristics and the analysis of the situations, metaphors, allusions, the deliberate mixing of discourses – poetic, scientific, camp, the usage of the criminals’ jargon, simplicity and terseness of syntax, literary tone painting, the form of sonnet, the inclination to aphorisms, the creative use of artistic time and space.