Serhiy Yefremov and Viktor Petrov: the difference aesthetic preferences or conflict of generations?

The purpose of the article is to compare the models of life and the value system of Serhiy Yefremov and Viktor Petrov in the context of the “theory of generations”. Drawing on the historiographical and literary heritage of specialists, using as different sources, such as diaries, memoirs and journalism, the author tries to outline the socio-psychological portrait of both the two prominent intellectuals, to clarify the fixation of their images in the memory of contemporaries, find out the reception of their work by successors. The attitude of V. Petrov to the “History of Ukrainian Writing” by S. Yefremov's interpretation of T. Shevchenko's creativity and the evaluation of “The Liberation Union of Ukraine” case are highlighted.Identifying the significant differences between the two intellectuals, theauthor concludes that the recognition of individual freedom and freedom of thought as the highest value was common to both. It is evident not only in life trajectories, but above all in texts. In the 1920s, Yefremov expressed consistent anti-communism in his secret diary, which became one of the evidences in the case of the “Union of Liberation of Ukraine”. Both did not accept Bolshevism as a system and way of thinking – only in the heyday of creative forces Yefremovfell like a victim of Stalin's terror, Petrov was a person who had been burned by the same day, but he had survived in difficult circumstances.