THE PROBLEM OF NATIONAL IDENTITY AND CREATIVE INDIVIDUALITY IN THE PROSE OF VASYL STUS AND CZESłAW MIŁOSZ

Abstract

In a typological way, the paper considers the problem of preservation/loss of the writer’s individuality, with a focus on the national identity as its essential component, on the example of the self-published texts of Ukrainian and Polish literature, in particular the essay by Czesław Miłosz “Alpha, or Moralist” from the book “The Captive Mind” and literary-critical research work by Vasyl Stus “Phenomenon of the Age (Ascent to Calvary of Glory)”. Both for Vasyl Stus and Czesław Miłosz the native language is a matter of special importance as well as their attachment to the homeland, which is expressed in the awareness of the impossibility to fully realize their talents abroad. In the context of the totalitarian system, which perceived art as a means of asserting ideology, the paper analyzes image features of a famous prose writer Jerzy Andrzejewski and outstanding poet Pavlo Tychyna in the texts of their contemporaries Cz. Miłosz and V. Stus. The main issues are the motive of disguise and pretending to be another, the peculiarities of creative work aiming at pleasing the authorities as a conscious apostasy from one’s own “I”. The role of a state writer leads to the destruction of the writer’s individuality, in particular his national identity (in the “Phenomenon of the Age”), turning the artist into a ‘dead’ person-function. V. Stus and Cz. Miłosz are similar in their desire to understand the writers represented in their texts, to interpret them as victims of the system. Attention is drawn to the difference in the narration of the compared texts: if Cz. Miłosz presents the story about J. Andrzejewski keeping some emotional distance, V. Stus is deeply concerned about the loss of P. Tychyna’s poetic individuality, and with it – national identity, perceiving the tragedy of Ukrainian literature as personal harm. б e question of national identity in the work by Cz. Miłosz is not actually raised, while in V. Stus’s one it is presented quite clearly in its historical continuity as a fundamental problem of the Ukrainian culture.