THE INFLUENCE OF «ROBINSON DER JÜNGERE» BY J.H. CAMPE ON THE WORK “SON OF UKRAINE” BY I. FEDIV AND V. ZLOTOPOLETS

Abstract

The article deals with the contact between the German Robinsonade by Campe «Young Robinson» in two books (1779, 1780) and the only one Robinsonade in Ukrainian literature by Igor Fediv and Valentin Zlotopolets «Son of Ukraine» (1919). «Son of Ukraine» originally was planned as a translation of an adventure novel for young people and it had the great didactic potential. But in the process of the translation it became an independent work. Its authors shaped by a different culture and a different historical period of human development fully appreciated the educational potential of the Robinsonade by Campe. Meanwhile, in response to the challenges of their time the authors of «Son of Ukraine» created a different image of Robinson – Ukrainian Mykola Nalyvajko who spares his young life for freedom and independence of Ukraine. Although of both robinsonades depict approximately one historical time – the second half of the seventeenth century but the historical facts reflected in both novels in accordance with national and cultural development are different. The death of the protagonist in the Ukrainian robinsonade demonstrates the change of genre form which confirms the variability of the robinsonade as a kind of adventure novel. In a such kind of genre form usually after intolerable levels of hardships and island loneliness comes a happy end to salvation and further quiet and long life in a home country environment. Examples from the novel chapters (the Ukrainian authors considered these chapters to be a translation) show the characteristic features of J. Campe’s robinsonade influence on the Ukrainian robinsonade in which demonstrates the merge of literary creativity and literary translation. Igor Fediv and Valentin Zlotopolets modestly viewed this process as a montage. However, this process became a unique phenomenon in the literary as a result of which we can observe a hybrid form of adventure novel and translation. The article emphasizes the free partly adaptive translation of the considered examples from Robinson’s Campe, at the same time, making an analyze of the reflection of content elements and image system of the work, embodied in language and speech forms which are characteristic of creative Fediv and Zlotopolets work.