Constructing of the author's image in the diary of Panteleimon Kulish
Authors:   National Pedagogical Dragomanov University, Ryzhenko Katerina 
Published: June 2021

P. Kulish as a person is most fully revealed in the autobiographical texts, as they project a real picture of the author's views on the world, its conceptualization and categorization. Throughout his life, the writer turned to autobiographical work. The literary works in which the author reconstructs his “self” on the basis of his own memories of his real life events, create a kind of autobiographical paradigm, a special place in which belongs to a personal diary. The article proves that P. Kulish's diary allows to understand the historical and cultural conditions that influenced the development of his personality and creative intentions. This is facilitated by the analysis of the author's communication with the Ukrainian and Russian creative intelligentsia, in particular with the rector of St. Petersburg University P. Pletnyov, and the described love stories of the writer with Olga Pletnyova, daughter of his patron, and Alexandra Bilozerska, the writer's future wife. The autobiographical narrative is created by the following techniques: retrospective vision of events, chronological principle of presentation of material, psychological disclosure of the author's personality. P. Kulish's diary testifies to a kind of self-creation of the writer, because the author relied on its publication, so he was not always sincere in expressing his own thoughts or describing situations. Among the objective reasons for self-mythologizing were P. Kulish's plans to occupy a high place in the St. Petersburg circle of intellectuals. On the other hand, the reasons for self-idealization in the diary were the psychological features of P. Kulish's personality: painful selfishness, vulnerability, ambition, passion. The image of “self” by P. Kulish is interesting from the point of view of self-objectification and self-expression of the author, because his own private life is only a proto-plot, and the author himself is a prototype of the main character: artistic image and real personality are close but not identical. Analysis of the autobiographical image of P. Kulish proves that the author sought to emphasize the importance of his scientific and cultural activities. So, the writer built an autobiographical image as a literary portrait of an active and at the same time unique representative of the era, which claims to be a leader in the national and cultural space of Ukraine. P. Kulish's personal myth is transmitted through several microimages: on the one hand, the image of an intellectual, truth-teller, high moral person, who has authority among famous figures of the time, and on the other – a romantic image of the hero of a love novel, sensual and at the same time ironic refers to the object of their sympathies. Self-analysis, self-reflection are the key ways of self-disclosure of the writer in the diary, which allow to view P. Kulish as a person with an inflammatory character, decisive, principled, self-sufficient, purposeful, and at the same time sensual and vulnerable. Thus, the diary of P. Kulish represents a subjective portrait of the author, created by him in the context of a particular historical time. The author of the diary symbolizes and mythologizes his “self”, and the basis of these processes is the identification world which correlates with the one of mental, national, aesthetic and ethical values and meanings of P. Kulish as a Ukrainian patriot and humanist.