Rzhevuskyi in search of identity (according to a biographical essay by V. Petrov-Domontovych “Revukha went for a walk by the sea”)

Viktor Platonovich Petrov (V. Domontovych; 1894-1969) left a significant intellectual heritage in many fields of Ukrainian scientific and cultural life. In the context of biographic science, the novelized biographies and biographical belleslettres of V. Petrov-Domontovych, the problems of personal identity and its metamorphosis, especially at the turning point of an epoch, deserve special attention and remain an important issue of many biographical works of the author. Life metamorphosis of the protagonist serve as the example – from Polish nobleman Waclaw Rzewuski (1785-1831) to Arabian Emir Gold Beard and Cossackchieftain Revukha, which interest V. Petrov-Domontovych as the means of development a certain ideological and psychological collision regarding the search for homeland and the “national consciousness” that coincide with the philosophical reflections of the scientist V. Petrov (“Historiosophic Sketches”). Using the artistic means, Viktor Petrov-Domontovych succeeds in portraying a person living in turning point of an epoch who broke away from his native soil but struggled for his own authenticity, got through several lives, had several namesand was doomed to “build a homeland in own souls”. The search for a new homeland, for understanding of own “self” is connected with the construction of “imaginary homes” in other cultures. The essay harmonically links biographical, psychological, socio-cultural contents.The agenda, the given sources, particular selection and structure of events and facts depicting the main idea of the composition, combination of scientific and belles discourse, determine the biographic type of the essay.