National Components of «The Aeneid» by I. Kotlyarevsky

Abstract

The article deals with the national components of I. Kotlyarevsky’s poem «The Aeneid». The writer pays much attention to this issue in his poem. There is no abstract person for him, detached from the national, historical and social basis. The national element, which largely explains and reveals the human traits, as well as the peculiarity of its mental composition, the author of «Aeneidа» attaches great importance.

It is possible to distinguish such national components of I. Kotlyarevsky’s work as national characters, national problems, nationalartistic form, type of imagery.

The Cossacks imposed on the Ukrainian national character a clear imprint of liberty and patriotism, courage and bravery. The images of the Trojans reveal in the poem «The Aeneid» the love of Ukrainian Cossacks, his patriotism. The figure of Aeneas in the work of I. Kotlyarevsky is a collective image of the Zaporozhye leader, who reproduces some national features of Ukrainian character.

In the poem «Aeneidа», the national character of the Ukrainian contradicts the official, autocratic understanding of this problem. I. Kotlyarevsky in his work promotes not humility, passivity, slavery, crawling before the autocrats, and another human ideal: freedom of love, rebellion, hatred of slavery, willingness to die for their beliefs. The Ukrainian author of «The Aeneid» saw a vivid picture of the Ukrainian mentality, which is why the national character, formed in certain specific social and political circumstances, is unique and unique as the fate of the Ukrainian people, its historical development.

The author of «The Aeneid» emphasizes that national character is not a conserved constant and cannot be transformed into a metaphysical unalterable set of qualities and psychic qualities given by «nature». It is a variable that depends on the variability of the social and historical conditionsof the nation’s development.

Starting from Virgil, travestizing his «The Aeneid», I. Kotlyarevsky gives her another ideological sound. In the scheme of the epic of the ancient Roman classic, the Ukrainian author placed a completely new social and everyday world, illuminated through the prism of the national outlook and colored by Ukrainian folk humor. I. Kotlyarevsky reproduces the types of people who have done a great deal for the glory of Ukraine, portrays the person whose national and patriotic feelings determine the dignity of his personality. The man in I. Kotlyarevsky’s «The Aeneid» appears with his national face.