Intellectuals-enlighteners in the prose of O. Konyskyi and B. Grinchenko: the problem of their realization

Abstract

The article deals with the prose works by two representatives of Ukrainian literature from the last quarter of the 19^th century — Oleksandr Konyskyi and Borys Grinchenko. It emphasizes that a number of their works expand the genre-style possibilities of Ukrainian prose of their time, while simultaneously embodying their efforts within the limits of realistic artistic prose to model the desired idea of society. Aware of the limitations of their practical actions, the novelists count on the literature role of a serious mediator for the established communication between the “old” and “young” intellectuals, between the intellectuals and the people. The ideological prose was a way to promote Ukrainian culture and attract new forces to the cultural-enlightenment movement. The subject of research is the problematic-ideological basis of the works and their system of images. The object of research is the prose works by O. Konyskyi and B. Grinchenko, where the driving force of the plot and the main protagonists are representatives of various Ukrainian intellectuals, who used to be called "new people". The aim of the article is to trace the examples of these two authors’ works and how the ideas of the national movement and mood were changing among the Ukrainian public and cultural figures in the older and younger generations of Ukrainophiles. The stated aim includes solving the following tasks: to outline the different periods of the populist movement in Ukraine in the perception of its long-term and active participants; to analyse the approach to conceptualizing the image of the “new man” as a bearer of a new ideology and the popularization of the latter among the broad masses; to find out to what extent the dreams of the populists corresponded with reality.

As the result of the analysis carried out using the approaches of biographical, historical-literary, and empirical research methods, it was possible to establish that the tasks faced by ideological prose at the beginning of the 70s of the 19^th century did not lose their relevance in the last decade of the 19^th century, since the internal policy of the government towards the Ukrainians essentially did not change. According to the authors, literature could program a certain social behaviour of a significant social group, however, for objective reasons, works from the life of the intellectuals were known to a small audience.