The image of male / female artist in Ukrainian literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in the gender aspect

Abstract

The study examines gender issues in the works of Ukrainian writers on the border of the 19th and 20th centuries, whose main heroes and heroines are representatives of art. In the dramaturgical works of this time, due to the departure from the social issues, the problems of gender equality and the possibility of choosing their life path by women actresses are intensified. This topic today remains an almost unexplored in scientific works, which determines the relevance and scientific novelty of our article. The purpose of the study is to consider the processes of modernization of Ukrainian literature in the context of gender and feminist issues, as well as to analyze the peculiarities of writers’ interpretation of images of artists in prose and drama using general scientific approaches and comparative typological method. The research results allows to state that such writers as O. Konisky and H. Khotkevych seek to reveal the peculiarities of the worldview of their characters. At the same time, the attitude of the heroes towards the female gender is traditional, the chosen ones of the musicians – main literary personages – should be female associates who fully support the lofty thoughts and deeds of their husbands. Actors and actresses in the plays by M. Starytsky and I. Karpenko-Kary raise the most difficult issues of family life, fidelity and betrayal of wives and husbands in marriage, life in a civil marriage and others that continue to be relevant in our time. L. Starytska Cherniakhivska, Lesia Ukrainka and O. Kobylianska, going beyond gender issues in the direction of feminist views, transfer the emphasis in their plays and short prose to the tragedy of a talented woman who devoted herself to art. Thus, Ukrainian writers of the studied period considered in sufficient detail the problem of gender relations in their modern society, in particular, the issue of family betrayal in its interpretation by representatives of the opposite sexes, and built a kind of hierarchy of relations between women and men.