THE TOPIC OF THE ARTICLE IS THE CATEGORY OF THE TRAGIC AS A FORM OF THE AUTHOR’S INDIVIDUAL STYLE IN THE MEMOIR «DUEL WITH THE DEVIL» BY O. HAI-HOLOVKO»

Abstract

The article characterizes Oleksa Hai-Holovko’s memoir novel Duel with the Devil through the prism of the tragic category. The tragic events described in the novel are presented in a retrospective perspective, based on the author’s personal experience against the background of social events of the fi rst one-third of the twentieth century (collectivization, the famine of 1933, mass repressions of the thirties). The writer de-scribes the events taking place in the USSR (Volume 1) and in post-war Germany (Volume 2), where the narrator lives at diff erent periods of his life. In the novel, the category of tragic is characterized in the indirect, direct and existential format.The plot, composition, problematic and thematic features of the work are characterized. The milestones of Hai-Holovko’s formation as a personality are described, and the researcher focuses on the formation of his national, patri-otic, and civic character against the backdrop of tragic reality. The chronological sequence of the author’s narrative illustrates a panoramic picture of his tragic existence, which at the same time refl ects the tragic fate of the Ukrainian na-tion. According to the literary critic, the writer models the category of the tragic in the novel in three ways: 1) the tragic pictures are depicted indirectly in the novelist’s references to the emergence of Soviet power in Ukraine, the outrages of the Red Army, the shooting of neighbours, and third-party testimonies about the persecution and extermination of Ukrainians in foreign lands who did not öèñòàwant to return to the USSR after World War II; 2) the direct tragic determines the vicissitudes on the path to personal freedom in Ukraine and abroad. Plot moves constantly keep the reader in dynamic tension as a sign of the narrator’s (author’s) tragedy – the fear of falling into the hands of persecutors even when he lived in the American zone of Germany; 3) the tragedy of the individual at the level of existence, when the narrator illuminates inner feelings through the prism of adventure «fi lms» about the NKVDists’ «hunt» for non-returnees, the arrest of the main character, and his escape from arrest. The memoir plot of the novel Duel with the Devil is marked by a progressive temporal dynamic, outlines the key stages of the writer’s biography, and refl ects his thoughts and experiences against the background of a diffi cult era.