Reception of Hohol’s Creative Heritage in the Works of Slavists and Researchers of Ukrainian Abroad (Based on the Materials of the Fund of the Department of Foreign Ukrainian of Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine)

This article is based on research of the book resources of the Department of Foreign Ukrainian Studies at the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, and is dedicated to reception of Hohols oeuvre as seen in the works of Slavists and scholars of Ukrainian studies abroad. The base for analysis are scientific concepts relevant to Hohols identification and postcolonial reading of his writings, such as by G. Grabowicz (USA), O. Ilnytskyi (Canada), E. Boianovska (USA), M. Naidan (USA), O. Semenchenko (Great Britain), Yu. Barabash (Russia), P. Savchak and M. Pavlyshyn (Australia), and others. Researchers focus on the idea of Ukrainian identity, and development thereof, in connection with the history of reading and interpreting the |creative legacy of M. Hohol in different historical periods. They support the Ukrainian narrative and present their vision of the writers contribution to the development of modern Ukraine. M. Hohol is a most remarkable writer in the global culture, a Ukrainian by origin, whose creative work has become an important milestone in the development of Ukrainian literature and self-awareness of Ukrainians as a self-sufficient cultural universe. The uniqueness of his creative heritage is that in all historical epochs during the last 160 years (after the writers passing to eternity), he always finds himself at the intersection of pain points of the society and Ukraine-Russia relations, a mirror of which his creative legacy has become. The works of foreign researchers provide an external view on Hohols art and his contribution to the development of contemporary Ukraine. Hohols literary works act as evidence that there exists a self-sufficient Ukraine, as a specific ethnographic area, with its own extensive spiritual experience, and cultural and intellectual traditions. Hohols writings of the Ukrainian cycle are permeated with Ukrainian spirituality and the Ukrainian outlook upon the universe. Both comprehension and introduction of this idea into scientific circulation are important factors in the development of Ukrainian statehood, and a modern, renewed, up-to-date Ukraine. This article proves the urgency of understanding and advertising the Ukrainian narrative of the Hohol studies discourse at the present moment, at the time of Russian aggression in Ukraine, when the trends of de-Ukrainization of Ukraine are remarkably strong, while Russian cultural figures visit Kyiv even today and spread the Soviet and Russian narratives of the writers art.