Стаття присвячена феномену божевілля в українській літературі першої
половини ХХ ст. Аналізуються ідейно-естетичні тенденції, пов’язані з
осмисленням феномену божевілля, з’ясовуються його функціональні особливості, художньо-символічне й ідейно-політичне значення, наголошується на типологічних збігах у потрактуванні божевілля як теми і сюжету,
проводяться паралелі між психологічною атмосферою тоталітарного світу і художніми інтерпретаціями божевілля. До аналізу залучені різні за жанром, стилем і хронологією твори, у яких тема божевілля набуває ідеологічно забарвленого й символічно значущого змісту.
The paper focuses on the madness as a theme and plot in Ukrainian literature of the 1st
half of the 20th century. The researcher analyzes ideological and aesthetic tendencies associated
with the understanding of the madness phenomenon, clarifies its functional features,
symbolic and ideological significance, and emphasizes the connection between the psychological
atmosphere of the totalitarian reality and literary interpretations of madness. The
analysis involves works of different genres, styles, and dates of writing in which the theme of
madness acquires ideologically engaged and symbolically significant content.
In “Sanatorium Zone” by M. Khvylovyi the madness phenomenon is associated with
the problems of split personality and suicide. It may be explained in a modernist context, as
a reflection of the internally conflicting nature of a man, incapable of changing the existing
world or getting adjusted to it.
In the tragicomedy “People’s Malakhiy”, M. Kulish introduced the idea of madness into
the complex sociopolitical context of the soviet reality which he revealed in various forms
(from mythological to social-political) using satirical and grotesque images, philosophical
generalization, etc. An episode of madness in the novel “The Garden of Gethsemane” by I. Bahrianyi emphasizes
the anomality of the soviet world which is symbolized by the punishment cell and
characterized as a “conveyor belt for dismantling human souls”.
The story of the romantic poet Hölderlin in the novel by V. Domontovych is socially
and politically conditioned. It reveals the state of a man and the world in a difficult transitional
era. In “The Enameled Bowl”, Domontovych elaborates the theme of illness through
the idea of the lack of consistency between the internal and external and understands it as
an artistic convention that marks the absurdity of the world. T. Osmachka in his prose was especially focused on the theme of madness. He was interested in mental disorders both as a form of the character’s self-awareness and as a clinical
story. The mythological and ideological image of a mentally ill man, reflecting a creative
person subjected to repression and persecution, is a symbol of his own biography.
In general, the changes in the interpretation of mental disorders are associated with the
renewal of the modernist poetics and caused by the writers’ attempts to clarify the connection between the external and internal.
