The problems of the leader, national treason and the readiness of the people to fight for their freedom in the fairy-tales by Ivan Lypa

Abstract

The relevance of the study is due to the interest in Ivan Lypa’s work, which was awakened by the turbulent dynamics of the national processes of Ukrainian society, the rethinking of Ukrainian history and culture. Despite the intensification of research into the writer’s work, fairy-tale creativity remained within the margins of attention. However, they are of research interest in the context of the problem of ideology in fairy-tale texts, which is considered in the article through the prism of post-colonial studies. The subject of this study is the anti-colonial elements of the “Tales of Freedom” poetics by Ivan Lypa. The methodology of analysis is based on the theoretical foundations of post-colonial criticism, in particular on the ideas of E. Said, G. Ch. Spivak, E. M. Thompson, S. Pavlychko, M. Ryabchuk, T. Gundorova, Ya. Polishchuk, O. Yurchuk, whose ideas help to consider Ivan Lypa’s “Tales of Freedom” as a bank of post-colonial technologies for occupied Ukraine. The purpose of this study is to deconstruct imperial narratives in I. Lypa’s philosophical tales and to identify the technologies and practices for liberating Ukraine from colonial dependence.

As a result of the analysis, it was concluded that by distancing himself from specific historical eras, the writer transfers the problems of Ukrainian society into a fairy-tale space. This helps him look at Ukrainian prospects completely removed from time but rather from the viewpoint of eternity. In a fairy-tale space, the author solves the long-standing historical problems of Ukraine associated with the loss of independence: the lack of strong leaders, national treason, the unwillingness of the people to fight, the demoralization of society, the disbelief in one’s own strength, education on a false history imposed by the metropolis. Consideration of fairy tales from the point of view of post-colonialism allows us to find veiled allegories and hidden intentions in the author’s work, in which the writer shows how Ukraine should free itself from colonial dependence. An important factor in this, according to Ivan Lypa, is the return of historical memory. The perspective of the study is the post-colonial analysis of Ivan Lypa’s work as an ideological and artistic integrity.