Laughter through the invisible world of tears (Ostap Vyshnia in the «Diaries» and in life)

In the offered attention of the readers, the intelligence outlines several little-known worldview constants, which defined in the poetry of one of the greatest humorists and satirists of the 20th century – Ostap Vyshnia, not only a special way of understanding the tragic realities of the past century by a Ukrainian, but also the very way of the presence and in destructibility of Ukrainianness in the totalitarian intervening time. In the poetic and axiological dimension, Ostap Vyshnia is a direct heir of the laughing tradition, which originates from the domestic baroque polemicists – Ivan Vyshenskyi and his opponent – Adam-Ipatiy Potiy, to the philosophical and satirical fables of Hryhoriy Skovoroda. And then – to the humorous and satirical prose of Mykola Hohol and the satirical poems of Taras Shevchenko. The article examines the specifics of the hither to insufficiently researched receptions of the phenomenon of Ostap Vyshnia’s work presented by his contemporaries. For example – Mykola Khvylovyi, Yuriy Smolych. Likewise, his diaries, which he kept in the Russian Soviet concentration camp «Chibyu», the key concepts of which are analyzed in this article, are a unique source of updating the figure of Ostap Vyshnya. Among these leading constants of the writer’s individual philosophy should be attributed his inherent Christian humanism – it is no coincidence that in the 1920’s, Ostap Vyshnia was considered by Ukrainian peasants to be a kind of institution, to which numerous readers of his stories, feuilletons, smiles, and poems turned for help when they were offended and humiliated by the authorities. associated with such Christian worldview humanism is the desire and ability to help in times of need, to provide effective practical help even when the writer himself needed support and help. The figure of Ostap Vyshnia, under this review, receives a dimension that is not trivialized by other people’s stereotypes and narratives. It opens in its still unexplored in the 21th century power of a passionate personality, which was a prominent Ukrainian satirist and humorist. As a unique document, Ostap Vyshnia’s diaries under the name «Chibyu» are not only evidence of the key priorities of his immanent worldview, of ten not declared due to the nature and specificity of his work, but also one of the most objective testimonies about the true essence and character of the Soviet totalitarian days. It is not by chance that the word-symbol «Chibyu» was immortalized much later as a sign of totalitarian repression and abuse of Ukrainians in concentration camps by the great poet Vasyl Stus in the poem «Moscow – Chibyu». Despite all the obvious differences, it is precisely in this sense that the diaries of Ostap Vyshnia «Chibyu» are next to other important documents of the era – the «Diaries» of academician Serhiy Yefremov and the «Diary» of the great film director and writer Oleksandr Dovzhenko.