UKRAINIAN IDENTITY IN POETRY: FROM SHEVCHENKO TO BU-BA-BU AND BEYOND

This article analyzes Ukrainian identity in poetry from national bard Taras Shevchenko to present-day poets writing about the war in Eastern Ukraine. Shevchenko creates a poetics of Ukrainian identity first and foremost by writing in Ukrainian (instead of the lingua franca of the Russian Empire) on a lofty intellectual level that was simultaneously accessible to all layers of Ukrainian society and not just to the small number of highly educated cultural elite of his time. Thus, Shevchenko elevated the status of the Ukrainian language as a form of higher discourse. Magic-like incantation comprises one of the most powerful aspects of Shevchenko's poetry that generates a message for readers that is felt aesthetically and that transcends mere semantics. A third method of identitybuilding comprises the use of unifying emblems of the "sacred" Ukrainian land, including the Dnipro River, its steep banks, the wide steppe, and the broad-tilled fields. Shevchenko also promotes a strategy of focusing on indigenous Ukrainian folklore and songs of the common people, using folk rhythms such as the kolomiyka and the genre of the "duma," thereby connecting with people of all classes of society and elevating "peasant" cultural status to a unifying "national" level. In the role of the kobzar, he relates the suffering of the Ukrainian people for healing the past and emotionally connects to readers through archetypes such as abused young girls, orphaned children, the elderly, and the pejorative image of the moskal, the Russian soldier exploiting Ukraine. Ivan Franko creates a multi-genre intellectual primer for the Ukrainian cultural elite to educate the Western Ukrainian people in the power of literature to shape civic discourse as well as to show the people's struggles in his realistic depiction of their lives and their journeys toward self-realization. To promote Ukrainian identity Lesia Ukrainka utilizes indigenous folklore in "Forest Song" and historical parallels and allegories with ancient Roman civilization along with Scottish history. Volodymyr Sosiura and Maksym Rylsky focus on the melodic nature of the Ukrainian language in their poetry and also write exhortative statement poetry during World War II when Ukraine was under existential threat. Among the writers of the sixties, Lina Kostenko produced refined lyrical poetry with a profound sound orchestration as well as her masterpiece novel in verse "Marusia Churai" that captured the imagination of the reading public. Vasyl Symonenko focused on sacred Ukrainian nature along with exhortations against the repressive Soviet regime. Ivan Drach promoted Ukrainian identity through emotionally charged emblems such as the kalyna (guelder rose) and sunflower. Vasyl Stus became an open symbol of resistance against the regime. The Bu-Ba-Bu generation of poets rejected both Socialist Realism and national realism, preferring instead to parody national emblems such as kozaks and classics such as Sosiura's "Love Ukraine." Post-glasnost and post-independence Ukrainian poets also looked to the West for literary and musical models for expansion beyond the traditional canon, which functioned as an extension of Mykola Khvylovy's Western orientation in the 1920s. Current poets such as Serhiy Zhadan, Lyuba Yakimchuk, and Borys Humeniuk return partly to statement poetry about the war in Eastern Ukraine when the existence of the country is threatened. Thus, all the poets mentioned to some degree employ strategies for identity-creation developed by Shevchenko (except for parody), moving back and forth on a pendulum from the purely aesthetic lyrical on one side to statement poetry when the nation is most endangered on the other. Parody harkens back to older genres, particularly Ivan Kotlyarevsky's "The Aeneid"(Eneida) that served to establish the modern Ukrainian literary language