The Spiritual Foundations of «Home» as a Living Space through a Prism of LesiaUkrainka’s «Forest Song»

Abstract

Lesya Ukrainka’s
works and their studyhave never lost their relevance. Such studies are even more
timely today when it is the 150th anniversary of the poet’s birth.
Lesya Ukrainka’s drama-extravaganza «Forest Song»is one of her most read and
studied works. However, with the emergence of new methodological approaches, there
are more opportunities forits deeper comprehension and interpretation.
The purpose of this study is to analyze the work at the intersection of literary
criticism, ethnophilosophy, andethnocultural studies, namely to trace how the work
reflects the spiritual foundations of the topos Home. The methodological foundation
for this paperis the universal archetypal concept «Home – Field – Temple»,
suggested by S. Krymskyi for the analysis of the realities of Ukrainian culture,
including literary works. The scholar managed to outline possible vectors of
research in this field. Therefore, it can be claimed that the interdisciplinary approach
and the method of archetypes proved to be effective here.
The research has shown that in the drama extravaganza «Forest Song», the
most manifested of the three topoi of this concept is the topos Home, and not so
much its material as its spiritual content, which has become the subject of the study.
For the characters of the work, this area turned out to be multifaceted and
polysemantic. The notion of Home as a physical and spiritual space of existence for
Lukash, Kylyna, Uncle Lev, Mavka, Rusalka, Vodianyk, Lisovyk, and other
characters varies, as, in fact, does their nature. Therefore, Home for each of them is
also filled with different values, although they are correlated within human feelings
and relationships. There is a very thin line between myth and reality in the work.
Giving preference to material values over spiritual ones, actually, destroys the Home
of the Human. Free fromself-interest and greed, the Home of Nature lives by its own
laws and is capable of self-renewal. This is what caused the misunderstanding
between these topoi, and therefore between the main characters, Lukash and Mavka,
and did not allow their love to come true.