Ukrainian historical novel: ways of formation and development

Abstract

The experience accumulated by the art of words never goes away. At a certain stage of literary development, it can be exhausted to a certain extent, only to be revived in a new context in a modified form. The relevance of the study of historical prose, in particular its ways of formation and development, specificity, themes, is quite natural, since works about the national past allow the reader to consciously or sporadically immerse himself in the meaning of life realities, in particular to understand the moral and ethical ideals of the Ukrainian people, the physical and spiritual endurance of the participants in the national liberation struggle, and the deep human values that are often much more expressive and accurate in historical prose than in sociological and historical research. The fiction model of the heroic past serves to shape historical thinking, to deepen an individual’s understanding of his or her own place in society, and to help individuals find ways to self-knowledge and self-affirmation.

The article traces the genesis and main stages of formation of the Ukrainian historical novel, starting with the novel «Zynovii Bohdan Khmelnytskyi. Istorychna kartyna podii, kharakteriv, i zvychaiv XVII stolittia v Malorosii (Zynoviy Bohdan Khmelnytsky. A Historical Picture of Events, Characters, and Customs of the Seventeenth Century in Little Russia)» by Pavlo Biletsky-Nosenko — through the novel «Chorna rada. Khronika 1663 roku (Black Council. The Chronicle of 1663)» — to contemporary works about the past by Pavlo Zahrebelnyi, Roman Ivanychuk, Valerii Shevchuk, Yurii Mushketyk and others.

The specifics of historical novel prose are elucidated, the essence of the concepts of «historical novel» and «artistic and historical truth» is revealed, the role of fictional conjecture and fiction is determined. The article summarises the views of domestic researchers of historical prose on its typology.