Zhygun Snizhana

Yuri Tys’s novel “At Dawn” as a biofiction

Section: Theory and methodology of modern biography

Abstract: The genre of biofiction uses facts from the life of the protagonist as elements of the plot, but constructs a biography not of a real but of a generalized person, symbolizing a certain social group with its system of values. The aim of the proposed research is to trace the mechanism of transformation of a real figure into a symbolic one, the markers of which are the departure from the truth and the principles of selectivity. The material of the study is Yuri Tys’s novel “At Dawn. A Biographical Story from the Life of Marko Vovchok”. The research methodology involves: 1) the analysis of the main changes made by Tys in the biography of his character against the real Maria Markovych, as well as insufficiently substantiated interpretations; 2) definition of their functions in the context of the author’s strategy. The biographical, comparative and analytical methods have been used in the research. The scientific novelty of the study is associated with the definition of the features of genre biofiction strategies based on the material of Yuri Tys’s novel “At Dawn. A biographical story from the life of Mark Vovchok”. Conclusions. The study has found that the main issues on which the writer deviates from the facts and resorts to insufficiently substantiated interpretations are: 1) the personal life of the writer; 2) the concept of the writer’s work; 3) national identity. Tys represents the personal life of the writer in accordance with the norms of patriarchy: he removes all extramarital love affairs, significantly changes the biography of the second husband and the family composition. The concept of the writer’s evolution in the novel provides for the development from the depiction of the social oppression of serfdom to the understanding of the national oppression. The character of the novel has a stable national identity and is committed to the ideas of independence. Significant differences between Tys’s novel and the facts of Marko Vovchok’s biography are due to the author’s desire to inscribe the writer in a nation-making narrative. The transformation of a real figure into a symbolic one involves inscribing it into a large narrative, cutting off the unnecessary facts and adding the appropriate ones. Thus the genre of biofiction becomes a tool for reinforcing the ideas circulating in society that are relevant primarily for its author.

Keywords: biography, biographical literature, biofiction, nation-making narrative.

  Full-text PDF    https://doi.org/10.15407/ub.21.231     Citation

• Zhygun Snizhana (Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University (Kyiv, Ukraine), [email protected]) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1193-2949

Cite:
Zhygun Snizhana (2021). Yuri Tys’s novel “At Dawn” as a biofiction. Biographistica Ukrainica, (21) 231-241. (In Ukrainan). https://doi.org/10.15407/ub.21.231

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