VOLYN AT INTERSACTIONS OF EVENTS OF XX CENTURY (BASED ON ULAS SAMCHUK’S «RIDING THE WHITE HORSE», «RIDING THE BLACK HORSE» MEMOIR CYCLE)

Abstract

An article analyzes memoirs specifics of the famous Ukrainian writer Ulas Samchuk. Ukrainian memoir literature always pays much attention to the main figures and critical events in the life of society. Cultural life during the Soviet regime and censorship did not promote the development of memoir prose. The Totalitarian reality and Second World War had become the basis of memoirs of the Ukrainian writers in immigration (H. Kostiuk, U. Sherech, H. Zhurba). The name of Ulas Samchuk has to be brought back in the line of famous memoir writers. His memories are built on literary laws and contain reality and fiction, written by the witness. It helps in describing events in most bright and imaginative way, particularly in writing about the devastation of Volynian land because of antihuman socialists system. The author uses a traditional composition. In his memoir narration, he is similar to the literary criticism and even closer to publicists genre. Within the paradigm «memory – history» Ulas Samchuk gives his own studio of Ukrainian intelligent’s fate, specifics of national mentality, the adaptation problem of Ukrainian in the West world. It is proved, that writer’s memoir cycle is a unique document about life in Ukraine and in emigration in the first half of the twentieth century, the part of national intellectual history, which was created in different
countries and continents.