Life as a tragedy caused by war: the story of Denys Lukianovych "My son!"
Authors:   Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, Shmorlivska L. 
Published: June 2024

The article examines the little-known story of the Ukrainian writer and literary critic Denys Lukiyanovych (1873–1965) "My Son!" (1935). It was printed in its time only in the well-known literary and arts magazine Nazustrich (1934–1938). An attempt was made to characterize the ideological and thematic content and genre-stylistic specificity of the named work, thereby "writing" it into the history of Ukrainian literature of the 1920s–1930s. The relevance of the study is determined by the anti-war pathos of D. Lukiyanovych's story. Special attention is paid to the author's creation of a female image involved in the war events of 1914–1918, in particular, the so-called Great Retreat (June 27–September 14, 1915). As a result of this retreat, the operation of the troops of the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Bulgarian Empire) led to the crushing defeat of the Russian Empire and its withdrawal into the territory for several hundred kilometers. D. Lukiyanovych names specific villages of Lviv Oblast, Trostyanets and Stilsko, which were locally related to the mentioned events. The article points out the condensed content of the work, its plot-compositional features, and analyzes the system of images. It is proved that the author uses the strategy of synthesis of styles of the 20th century – from romantic and expressionistic tendencies, characteristic of the display of war, to naturalistic and impressionistic ones that "bare" the souls of the heroes. In the laconic format of the story, D. Lukiyanovych managed to create a monologue-recollection or rather a monologue-confession of the heroine, who, having lost her son, suffered more from the war than anyone else. The use of such a monologue narrative from the first person "intimates" what is written, and provides the effect of the presence of the recipient in the epicenter of events. The figure of the central heroine in her existential situation is the mouthpiece of the impoverished people and a symbol of their indomitability. The article characterizes the language features of the work (the peculiarity of word usage), the wealth of figurative techniques. It has been proven that the entire set of poetic techniques "works" in D. Lukiyanovych for the realization of the main idea, which consisted in condemning any war and expressing deep sorrow for human losses through the display of maternal grief. Of course, the story "My Son!" with its leading philosophical motif of life and death, life as a tragedy caused by war, is close to the works about the First World War by O. Kobylyanska, N. Kobrynska, O. Makovey, V. Stefanyk, Marko Cheremshyna, B. Lepkyi, I. Sinyuk, O. Turyanskyi, and many other artists. In conclusion, it was established that D. Lukiyanovych was able not only to depict the horrors of war but also to "immerse" his reader in the world of people who were destined to experience this horror. The original female image, written by the author in the story "My Son!", actually belongs to a number of iconic literary types associated with the war. Whereas the continuous semantic and emotional tension, specific stylistics allow us to call the analyzed story of D. Lukiyanovych dramatic. The research of other works of this author dedicated to the theme of man and war is promising. It would raise our understanding of the peculiarities of this particular artistic expression to a higher level. Key words: D. Lukiyanovych, the story "My Son!", the theme of war, the image of the mother, genre, style, modernity of writing.