The work of Oles Ulianenko, a laureate of the Small Shevchenko Prize, poses quite a problem for Ukrainian literary studies for several reasons.
In the first place, it should be noted that the topics and stylistic features of the artist's works have been issues of polemic – also, there has been much disputation on the genre identification of O. Ulianenko’s novels, since, even in terms of number, he wrote relatively fewer of them than short stories and novellas.
Given that, the purpose of the article is to characterize and define the genre features of the writer's work, basing on the analysis of the novelette, novella, and novel prose of Oles Ulianenko.
The methodological foundation of the research consists mainly of a triad of methods, such as hermeneutic, comparative-typological and corporal-mimetic methods to analyze artistic works.
Thus, the findings of the research are as follows: Oles Ulianenko's novels, in various ways, demonstrate the presence of fundamental and antinomic novel and at the same time corporally determined factors, such as the categories of “(in) completion” and “development” in the content.
The proposed interpretation of the genre specificity of O. Ulianenko's works avoids both the previous and subsequent unproductive discussions regarding the belonging of the listed texts to the respective genres, i.e. short story, novelette, novella, and novel.
Accordingly, it becomes quite clear that the realization of Oles Ulianenko's artistic aspirations, besides his attempts to achieve the corresponding unattainable goal, which is focused on desperate efforts aimed at penetrating the ontological foundations of human existence, above all, corporally conditioned existence, are only possible (attempts) through the medium of a single genre mainly, namely the genre of the novel.
To conclude, the genre specificity of Oles Ulianenko's novels is the fact that, first, they neglect quantitative factors, second, they are justified by the author's involvement in the corporal-anthropological foundation of ontological problematique, and, in this regard, third, they are determined by the writer's efforts to overcome limitations of human existence through the infinity of life and literature, likewise the contradictions of man – through the obviousness of meager simplicity and corporal fragility, which, after all, explain and condition each other in many ways.
