LYPA IN THE FORCE FIELD OF THE UKRAINIAN SICH RIFLEMEN OF THE 1920S AND 1930S: TOUCHES TO A LITERARY SILHOUETTE

Abstract

The article substantiates the place of Yuriy Lypa in the literary force field of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen of the 1920s–1930s on the basis of the analysis of the collected memoirs, fiction and literary criticism, and the actualisation of the details of Yuriy Lypa's life in the Odesa period. The artist appears as an organic member of the large military community of UGA veterans, united by common values (a sense of unity, the idea of rank, the idea of liberation, tragic optimism), which is also reflected in the assessments of the riflemen's criticism. Yu. Lypa's work on the pages of Sich Riflemen publications, in turn, strengthened the Riflemen literary structure ideologically and artistically. The textual level of Yu. Lypa's presence in the publications of the Legion of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen and the Ukrainian Galician Army veterans (Chronicle of Chervona Kalyna, Kalendar-Almanac of Chervona Kalyna / Historical Kalendar Almanac of Chervona Kalyna, Mytusa) is marked by his memoirs. «Galicians over the Sea (Odesa 1917–1918)», poetic prose «The One», poetry «From the Thoughtful Mirrors», the short story «The Sentinel» and the novel «Morenko». The memoirs also make it possible to highlight the details of Yuriy Lypa's personal contact with Galician riflemen during the Odesa period of his life, in particular with Tryfon Yaniv and Ivan Tsyapka-Skoropad, and the worldview interaction that grew out of the experience of reading military literature (O. Nazaruk, V. Pachovskyi). Direct communication with the Galician military, the completion of youth military training under their guidance significantly influenced the worldview and life trajectory of Yu. Lypa. The artist expresses his admiration for the rifleman's military character, reproduces it in his own hero («Morenko», «Hryniv»), supplements the biographies of the mentioned riflemen with unknown details, and artistically develops the typology of the motif of the brave rifleman in a heroic-tragic and hedonistic way. In the reception of rifleman criticism, M. Matiyiv-Melnyk is treated as a generationally close brother who shared the rifleman's liberation values and whose work is an important link in the cathedral chronicle of the liberation struggle.