Parabolic Structure of Essay/Short Parable Story “Za Hotar” by Olha Kobylianska

Abstract

The paper deals with the story “Za hotar” (“Beyond the Boundary”) by Olha Kobylianska from the point of view of modernist sacral aesthetics, since, as it has been observed, its architectonic structure comprises the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is proven that the relationship between the parable and the story is displayed at different levels of the literary text. The plot of the story “Za hotar” has many obvious parallels with the Christ’s parable, down to the coincidences in the image of a merciless priest. The modernist sacral perspective of the literary work by Olha Kobylianska makes it possible not only to observe the presence of hidden signs of the New Testament parable, but also to interpret the possibility of a genre shift. This procedure allows denoting this literary work not as an essay, but as a short story, since the parable of the Good Samaritan has a characteristic feature of a short story (its main idea is represented in showing mercy by one of the Samaritans, who in biblical times were considered as people lacking any sympathy towards strangers). The work by Olha Kobylianska provides an extremely powerful and philosophically deep insight. The plot includes the death of a daughter. On the one hand, it is perceived as quite substantiated (the child ran outdoors undressed in winter), but in terms of the mystical perspective it becomes a symbol of Christian mercy, or even a Christian self-sacrifice. Thus, the literary work “Za hotar” by Olha Kobylianska is based on the architectonical ground of the parable about the Good Samaritan. From the realistic perspective it may be interpreted as an essay revealing the mental traditions, everyday life, ideological foundations of the Bukovynian village contemporary for the writer. Although it becomes a parable in the modernist sacral perspective, which hides the fundamental gospel basis behind a realistic plot.