Image of the Other in O. Honchar’s Fictional and Journalistic Discourse

Abstract

The paper deals with the representation of other nations in fiction and journalism by O. Honchar. The specificity of reception and representation of the ethnic characters and other-culture realities is considered in the context of the paradigms “Me – Other”, “Own – Alien”. The paper surveys creative transformation of O. Honchar’s impressions from his trips in different countries, resulted in literary embodiment of perceptive peculiarities noticed by the writer in Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs, Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Portuguese, Americans, Germans, Gypsies and others. The representation of the Other’s ethnic mentality in fiction and journalistic publications by O. Honchar helps in understanding the range of  the writer’s literary paradigms, reveals his ideological and creative accents and contributes to considering the author as a writer of European tradition. Different imagological aspects in the texts by O. Honchar were interpreted using the markers of ethnic identification: mental values, history, culture, science, economy, nature. In the context of the war theme O. Honchar depicted ethnic peculiarities of Hungarians (“Spring behind Morava”, “Foothold”) and Slovaks (“Modry Stone”). The other-culture realities in Czechoslovakia, China, Japan, and America were described in the genres of essay and sketch. In essays “On the Land of Camões” and “The Shore of His Childhood” the reception of the Other is given in the characters of glorious writers representing their nations. Based on the analysis of text it may be stated that fictional and journalistic discourse of O. Honchar has such special features as distinctive author’s voice, stereotype-free reception and interpretation of the ethnic images and other-culture realities, destructed opposition in representation of the paradigms “Me – Other”, “Own – Alien”, emphasis on the main human values.