Concepts of Christian Culture in Recent Ukrainian Poetry

Abstract

During its long existence, Christianity had a powerful influence on the development of world culture in general and Ukrainian culture in particular. The Bible and other Christian texts determined the formation of the aesthetic foundations of ancient Ukrainian literature and became an inexhaustible source for the creativity of Ukrainian writers of the new era. Today's tragic events actualized in the country’s cultural space religious texts of various genres and themes, which in the literary and artistic sphere became a powerful source of language and expressive means, as well as new contents and ideas. The modern poetic reception of Christian texts preserves the durability of the national literary tradition and at the same time is characterized by numerous different types of innovations. Through the concepts of Christian culture, their reinterpretation, the authors convey the tragedy of the events, the difficult trials that once again befell the fate of the Ukrainian people, and at the same time support and inspire people. The recorded units are divided into groups (1) concepts of God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and biblical figures (Simon, Pilate, Judas, St. Peter), (2) biblical toponymic concepts, (3) concepts of mythical creatures (angels, beast; animals), (4) object concepts (cross, thirty pieces of silver, cup). It is natural that the concepts of the first and second groups are the most used in modern Ukrainian poetry, and the concepts of the third and fourth groups are less used. The artistic reception of Christian concepts in war poetry is diverse in terms of form and method of use, realized content and functional significance, and frequency of actualizations. Despite the differences in the stylistic and worldview-aesthetic direction of the artists’ creativity, they have in common an appeal to Christianity as the spiritual core of national culture. Concepts of Christian culture are emotional and meaningful clots of collective memory, spiritual culture, which deepen the content of poetic texts, appealing to universal values, evoking a wide range of associations. The actualization and reinterpretation of these concepts helps convey the tragedy of the events, the difficult trials that befell the Ukrainian people, and at the same time support and inspire people. Their use in poetic texts testifies to the bibliocentricity of the linguistic thinking of Ukrainian authors.