THE POETICS OF MAGICAL REALISM IN MODERN UKRAINIAN PLAYWRIGHTS

Abstract

Goal. The purpose of the article is an attempt to characterize the poetics of magical realism in modern Ukrainian drama in the context of the liminal concept. In modern literature, a new generation of dramatists has formed, in relation to their work there is a need to use the terminology of liminality in order to understand the essence of the processes taking place in modern drama. Methods. The study is based on the works of scientists in the field of liminality, hermeneutic and mythopoetic methods made it possible to analyze dramatic works as a single semantic integrity of all components in the context of functioning in the liminal phase, through the prism of the genre matrix of rituals of transition. The results. After considering modern Ukrainian drama, which is passing through the liminal stage (according to the terminology of A. van Gennep and V. Turner), it was determined that modern drama embodies the poetics of magical realism in order to realize the idea of deconstruction of mythological consciousness (artistically expresses collective ideas about myth and archetype in the mystical, formed in modern discourse, creates an ironic distance, destroys semantic layering, reconstructs the myth through personal interpretation); becomes an effective strategy of decolonization – personal and national; involves the mythological as mystical for the search for one’s own identity; involves criticism of the images on which the tradition is based and kitsch was formed; magic forms a way of expression for those who are not heard in society – hidden by the system as marginals; expresses the laws-stereotypes of the system in images of mystical worlds; embodies the liminal principle of equality, absence of hierarchy; enables the reinterpretation of the national narrative imposed by the colonizer; seeks answers in the historical past, returning history by magical movement between worlds; shows the image of a liminar, a trickster; at the stage of transition from the liminal to the post-liminal actualizes myths and archetypes as elements of the collective memory of Ukrainians, which form the image of the common historical experience of revenge suppressed by the colonizer, helps to artistically mark the images of one’s own/others. Conclusions. The concept of liminality is an effective strategy in literature studies, which made it possible to study the specific strategies of modern Ukrainian drama in the context of the poetics of magical realism.