Buriak Larysa

The biographical world of Lesya Ukrainka in the context of visual turn

Section: Contexts of Lesya Ukrainka’s biographical world: A view from the 21st century

Abstract: The aim of the article is to update Lesya Ukrainka’s photo gallery as one of the forms of reflecting the panorama of her biographical world. Lesya Ukrainka’s photographic representations, unique in their polyphony and polydimensionality, have been proposed for “re-reading” in the context of visual turn in order to further decode her tangled life. The conceptual framework of the research is based on the synthesis of interdisciplinary methodologies of visual turn and biographical studies in the combination with historical source criticism, which allows to interpret visual images as a key elements of biographical reconstructions. Scientific novelty. Given the current socio-cultural processes that continue against the background of the visual turn, Lesya Ukrainka’s collection of photographs is actualized as a psychological, socio-cultural and artistic phenomenon, which is no less important in reconstructions of the poet’s biographical world than her work and epistolary. The selected loci of a large-scale theme represent Lesya Ukrainka’s photographs in the plurality of their natural purpose, namely as “a means of communication”, “a sign of the real and imaginary”, “a kind of art”. Conclusions. Lesya Ukrainka’s photographs represent one of the forms of her selfpresentation and communication with the world and with herself. They appear as a kind of “message without a code”, through which the poet sought to convey the elusive vibrations of the soul, to communicate about oneself what was sometimes impossible to express in words. Lesya Ukrainka’s photo gallery represents her in a variety of priority selfidentifications, capturing important moments in life and certain cultural codes. For Lesya Ukrainka the photographs became an organic element of her biographical world, a visual artistic sign, one of the main “memorable places”, “place of generations”, a kind of “germination of the past into the future”; simultaneously showcasing as a form of art, that reflects the aesthetics of the epoch, cultural trends, artistic tastes and preferences.

Keywords: Lesya Ukrainka, visual turn, photography, communication, photos, biographical world.

  Full-text PDF    https://doi.org/10.15407/ub.21.039     Citation

• Buriak Larysa (The Institute of Biographical Research of VNLU (Kyiv, Ukraine), [email protected]) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4631-844X

Cite:
Buriak Larysa (2021). The biographical world of Lesya Ukrainka in the context of visual turn. Biographistica Ukrainica, (21) 39-61. (In Ukrainan). https://doi.org/10.15407/ub.21.039

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