MEMOIRS OF KOST’ MATSIEVYCH “LIFE OF MY CONTEMPORARY”: GEOGRAPHICAL COORDINATES OF EVENTS AND SPATIAL IMAGES

Abstract

The article analyzes the memoirs of K. Matsievych “Life of my contemporary” and the introductory article by Maxym Slavinsky “Parallels and applications”. The researcher updates the content of the materials stored in the Central State Archives of Ukraine in the fund 4465 “Collection of documents and materials of Ukrainian nationalist emigrant institutions, organizations and individuals”. The main factors which the author considered decisive in the formation of the personality and keeping the individual in the vector field of the Ukrainian national culture are outlined. The geographical coordinates of the events within which the formation of K. Matsievych’s personality took place were analyzed, mainly the villages and towns of the Middle Dnieper region; the most impressive and memorable events that accompanied the stay in these places were described. For 69 years of his life K. Matsievych got to know different geographical places both in Russia and in European countries. However, nothing remained in his memory so vivid as that small world that his eyes first saw. That world “was Ukrainian, nature was Ukrainian, Ukrainian landscapes, Ukrainian people around, with its own psyche, traditions, language and even clothes”.
We consider spatial images as a plurality of things, objects and as a form of perception of the existing reality, which together form the human mindset. The main spatial images that influenced the formation of a character, according to K. Matsievych, were: the house as a locus of economic, cultural and spiritual action; the family as a kind of community of people with its special folk traditions and rituals on holidays and weekdays; nature landscapes, engraved in the memory, the formation of a sense of dignity. Among the negative factors that influenced the formation of a personality was the Russification of education and the church.