THE POETIC HERITAGE OF GERASYM SMOTRYCKIY

Abstract

The family of Smotrycky had a petty noble origin. It confirms the archive data. The Gerasym studied at home. He was well known man for his considerable education; he knew Grek, Latin and Church Slavonic languages. The Protestant Princе Mykola Radziwill (Black) published the Bible by native language and the Prince Vasyl-Kostyantyn of Ostroh wanted to do the same. He invited Smotrycky to Ostroh in 1576. There are three poetic works in the center of the article. They are two panegyrizes to the Prince of Ostroh and the epigram «Рlutarchus». The heraldic poem «Look to the sign of princely glory» with the preface was at the beginning of the Ostroh Bible of 1581 year. The author interprets elements of the coat of arms; he chooses only some of them. The second poem «To the Reader» is an address to the recipient but in fact it is a panegyric to the Prince of Ostroh. The author compares the Prince of Ostroh with the Princes Volodymyr and Yaroslaw of Kyiv Rus times. He indicates his own name at the end of the work. Smotrycky tells about the superiority of spiritual value over the material in the epigram «Plutarchus». The ancient Greck philosopher was a supporter of the «idea of good deals». The didacticism of this poetry is a feature of new style. There is a combination of Renesaince (mainly elements of the content of the works) and Baroque features (formal signs). So the Gerasym Smotrycky is the first baroque Ukrainian writer. There is a worldview combination – Christian asceticism, the «idea of good deals», appeal to the antiquity heritage like in Renaissance but all of this has the baroque form of heraldic poem, an address to the reader, epigram.