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Humanism and the Renaissance in Recent Histories
of Ukrainian Literature
Giovanna Siedina
1. Two Major post-Soviet Histories of Ukrainian Literature
e goal of the pres ent article is to t ry and give a n assessment as to how the rec ep-
tion of Humanism and the Renaissance is reected in the history of Ukrainian
literat ure of the post-Soviet per iod. As is wel l known, and a s I briey s ummar ized
in a prev ious article (Siedin a 2018), in the last decades the st udy of the inuence
of Humanism and the Renaissance in Ukrainian literature has signicantly in-
creased. is is due in large part to politica l changes that have made a thorough
reevaluation of the cultural past of Ukraine more possible.
In order to analyze how the new approach to Ukrainian cultural heritage is
reected i n literature ma nuals, I examined t wo major histories of U krain ian lit-
eratu re that were published a er 2000, n amely Muza Rok solans’k a1. Ukrajins’ ka
literatura XVI-XVIII stolit’ by Valerij Še včuk (Kyiv, “Lybid’”, 200 4-2005), in two
volumes, and Istorija ukrajins’koji literatury. U 12 tomach (2014-) published by
the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Naukova Dumka. us far, only volumes
1-4 of the laer have been completed.
e two h istories of Uk rainia n literature d ier in severa l respects. I n the rst
place, the former is the work of only one author, and is devoted solely to early-
1 The name Muza Roksolans’ka is taken from a book by the poet Ivan Ornovs’kyj.
Giovanna Siedina, University of Florence, Italy, giovanna.siedina@uni.it, 0000-0002-3336-552X
FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice)
Giovanna Siedina, Humanism and the Renaissance in Recent Histories of Ukrainian Literature, pp.
137-166, © 2020 Author(s), CC BY 4.0 International, DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-198-3.08, in Giovanna
Siedina (edited by), Essays on the Spread of Humanistic and Renaissance Literary Civilization in the
Slavic World (15th-17th Century), © 2020 Author(s), content CC BY 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0
Universal, published by Firenze University Press (www.fupress.com), ISSN 2612-7679 (online), ISBN 978-
88-5518-198-3 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-198-3
138
GIOVANNA SIEDINA
modern Ukrainian literature, from the 16th to the 18th century. e laer on
the other ha nd, has been conceived as a collect ive work that should embrace t he
entire history of Ukrainian literature, from its beginnings in the 10th century
to today. Moreover, there is a ten-year gap between the two histories. However,
as studies in this area have not made much progress from 2004 to 2014, the gap
does not constitute an obstacle to comparing their approaches.
2. Muza Roksolans’ka
e rst volume of Muza Roksolans’ka bears the title Renesans. Rannje Baroko;
the title is not followed by an indication of the ti me frame. erefore, the whole
of the examined period is characterized as Renaissance and subsequently Early
Baroque. In order to verify this and to understand the chronological division
of the examined period, let us turn to the Introduction (Vstup) (Ševčuk 2004-
2005, 1: 8-19). In it, nowhere does Ševčuk dene his work a histor y of literature.
On the contrary, he states that he does not consider his work to be a history of
Ukrainian literature of the academic type. He rather views his work as a histo-
ry-reection on a period in which he did extensive research on his own, in the
form of retr ieving manuscript s and publishing (at times a er translating t hem),
wr iting a rticles and essays on single authors a nd/or works. Nonethele ss, he link s
Muza Roksolans’ka to previous histories of Ukrainian literature and expresses
his critical opinion of the works of several of his predecessors.
As is to be expected, the space devoted to the Renaissance is very lile, as
Ševčuk himself notes (“the Renaissance captured us less and entered our men-
tality less”2), while the Baroque period occupies most of the introduction. e
author then turns to the history of early-modern Ukrainian literature, particu-
larly the Baroque period, and reconstructs the main stages of its ‘rediscovery’
and study. In the rst place he provides a brief outline of Dmytro Čyževs’kyj’s
Histor y of Ukrainian lite rature. I w ill only foc us on a few points here. A s is known,
Čyževs’kyj v iewed the history of art as a history of styles, that is, of the changes
that each epoch has brought about in the systems of artistic ideals, tastes and
creations. e alternation of styles reminded him of the waves of the sea, and
on this basis, he elaborated the theory of cultural waves, since the nature of
styles changes, uctu ating between two di erent types that oppose each other3.
Čyževs’k yj him self recogni zed that such a scheme cou ld not be applied w ithout
correctives, t aking i nto account t he histor ical materia l and the existence of tra n-
sitional forms and styles that do not t this mechanical schematization. is is
especially true in the case of Ukrainian literature.
2 “Ренесанс менше захопив нас і менше ввійшов у нашу мента льність” (Ševčuk 2004-
2005, 1: 8). Here and elsewhere, translations a re mine unless other wise ind icated (GS).
3 erefore, the Middle Ages are opposed to the Renaissance, the Renaissance is opposed to
the Baroque, the Baroque to Classicism, Classicism to Romanticism, the laer to Realism,
and Realism to Neo-R ealism, t hat is Modernism.
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HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
Ack nowledging va rious sty listic and for mal charac teristic s of literary prod uc-
tion, Čyževs’ kyj ca lls the literat ure of Kyivan R us’ to the end of the 11th centu ry
the age of the ‘monumental style’, while the 12th-13th century is dened as the
age of the ‘ornamenta l style’. Ševčuk pa rtly agree s with thi s division, but st resses
the need to consider the literature of the Kyivan state as a whole. erefore, he
makes some corrections to Čyževs’kyj’s periodization of Ukrainian literature
into cu ltural-st ylist ic epochs. A ccording to Ševč uk, the literat ure of Kyivan R us’
should be divided into three phases: the early period (11th centur y), the period
of developed lite rature (12th centu ry-begi nning of the 13t h century), and the pe-
riod of aenuat ion (13th centu ry) (ucr. zahasannja). A nd since Čyževs’k yj cal ls
Uk rainia n literature up to t he 15th centur y medieva l, Ševčuk propose s to divide
it into three periods: early medieval (9th-11th centur y), developed medieval lit-
erature (12th-13th centur y), and the per iod of aenuation (14th-15th century).
Ševču k correctl y observe s that lile a ention has been devoted to t he Renais-
sance and the Reformation also due to the fact that Čyževs’ kyj did not consider
that i n the 16 th and rst h alf of the 17th centur y, when Uk rain ian literatu re opens
to Renaissance inuences and the ideas of the Reformation, it is no longer mo-
no-confessional, and, as Ševčuk states “it was its multi-confessional nature that
stimu lated both multi lingualism and multidimension ality”4. Čyžev s’ky j refuses
the de nition of “Cossack baroque”. Ševčuk, i nstead, stres ses that the authors of
17th-18th century U krain ian literatu re were not only clerics, but a lso Cossacks,
burgher s, representatives of t he nobilit y, a nd they wrote in h igh Uk rainia n (l iter-
ally in bookish Ukrainian language), in Latin, in Polish, in a low language near
to Russian and in Russian5. e author does not dene or specify further what
literary variety he means when speaking of ‘bookish Ukrainian language’ and
‘close to Russian language’. However, he devotes aention to the linguistic sit-
uation in a chapter titled Mova i vytvorennja kul’turnych ta duchovnych cinnostej
(XVI-XVIII st.) (Language and the creation of cultural and spiritual values (XVI-
XVIII centuries)). Here he tries to give an assessment of the linguistic situation
in the mentioned period, and states that it was precisely in the 16th century
that book ish Ukra inian la nguage formed on the basis of Ruthenian (Ukra inian
and Belarusian) chancery language, with admixtures of Church-Slavonic and
Ukrainian spoken language. is language is known as prosta mova, and it has
been the object of various scholarly analyses6: t hough Ševčuk does not mention
it, Polish elements played an important role in prosta mova (see Mozer 2002).
4 “Саме ї ї різноконфесійність стимул ювала й неодномовність, і неодновимірність”
(Ševčuk 2004-20 05, 1: 11).
5 “Ця л ітература творилася и козаками, й духовними, і міщанами, і шл яхтою; вона
творилася книж но-українською, латинською, польською, народ ною у каїнською і
набл ижен ою до росі йської, ч и й росі йською (в дру гій по ловині Х VI II) мовам и” (Š evčuk
200 4-2005, 1: 11).
6 Cf., among others Mozer 2002, Danylenko 2006. Ševel’ov’s seminal study on Ukrainian
phonology, published in 1979, also contains important in formation on prosta mova.
140
GIOVANNA SIEDINA
Leav ing aside the mult ifaceted relat ionship between re ligious confe ssion and
lang uage use in ear ly-modern Ukr ainia n literature, I deem w ort hy of not e the fact
that Ševčuk stresses the need to take into account Ukraine’s belonging to this
or that state structure in the study of its cultural and literary development (the
Halyč-Volyn’ principality, the Kyivan principality, the Grand Duchy of Lithu-
ania and subsequently the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). Dierent sub-
literatures, as Ševčuk calls them, originated from this diversity, and precisely,
the Lithuanian-Belarusian-Ukrainian, Polish-Ukrainian, Russian-Ukrainian
literatures. Moreover, the author underlines the importance of studying the
literary centers of Ukraine (L’viv, Ostroh, Kyjiv, Černihiv, Charkiv, Novhorod-
Sivers’kyj), which, as he states, Čyževs’kyj did not do, while Mychajlo Voznjak
had begun to do.
As to the Soviet per iod, Ševčuk briey ana lyzes the treatment of ancient a nd
early-modern Ukrainian literature in the 1967 Istorija ukrajins’koj literatury. U
8 tomach, Kyiv 1967 (History of Ukrainian literature. In 8 volumes). Taking into
account t he ideologica l framework w ithin wh ich the authors had to set their nar-
ration, wh ich dened the language a nd concepts and set t he parameters of their
discourse, a scholarly dispassionate and unbiased look at Ukraine’s literary his-
tory was inevitably impossible. Furthermore, one should also bear in mind that
many literar y texts from the 16th to 18th centur ies were unknow n, inaccessible
and, in any case, mostly unpublishable for ideological reasons.
A watershed occurred in the 1980s when, as Ševčuk records, hundreds of
new texts were published either in the original or in translations into modern
Ukrainian in several anthologies. And thus, the 1980s and 1990s were charac-
teriz ed by a noticeable interest in t he early modern period of Uk rainian cult ure,
which manifested itself in the publication of articles, monographs, collections
of essays, and new editions of literary and philosophical works. ey testify to
the relevance accorded to the relationship of Ukrainian literature with its past
(especia lly the literat ure of Kyivan Ru s’), as well as with Western Eu ropean and
other Slavic literatures7. In the 1990s the Baroque was at the center of scholarly
aention. A mong the research de dicated to this art istic cur rent, Ševčuk devotes
some aention to A . Makarov ’s Svitlo ukraijns’koho Baroko (1994). I ndeed, he is
part icularly a uned to Mak arov’s culturolog ical approach to the Ba roque, since
7 It is worth mentioning a few of them: Literaturna spadšyna Kyjivs’koji Rusi ta ukrajins’ ka
literatura XVI-XVIII st., Kyiv 1981; Ukrajins’ka literatura XVI-XVIII st. ta inši slov’ jans’ki
literatury, Kyiv 1981; Ukrajins’ke literaturne baroko, Kyiv 1987; Pisemnist’ Kyjivs’koji Rusi
i stanovlennja ukrajins’koji literatury, Kyiv 1988; Jevropejs’ke Vidrodžennja ta ukrajins’ka
literatura XVI-XVIII st., Kyiv 1993. e numerous anthologies published in the 1980s re-
veal a heightened desire to spread Ukraine’s rich literary production of the 16th and 17th
centuries, largely still unknown at that time. I will mention among them: Apollonova ljut-
nja: Kyjivs’ki poety XVII-XVIII st. (Kyiv 1982), Ukrajins’ka literatura XVIII stolija (19 83),
Antolohija ukrajins’ koji poeziji, t. I (1984), Ukrajin s’ka li teratura X VII st. (1 98 7), Ukrajins’ ka
poezija XVI stolija (19 87) ; Marsove pole. Herojična poezija na Ukrajini X – peršoji polovyny
XVII stolit’ (two books, 1988 and 1989), Ukrajins’ka poezija XVI-XVII st., Ukrajins’ka po-
ezija X VII st. Seredyna (19 92).
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HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
the laer is considered not only as a stylistic-literary phenomenon, but also as a
system of arts and as a social and psychological phenomenon.
As we have seen, Ševčuk adopts Čyževs’ kyj’s division of the literary process
into hi storical-aest hetic periods, but w ithout renouncing h istoricism, t hat is, con-
sidering every work within its time context. Distancing himself from the 1967
Istorija ukrajins’koj literatury, in which literary genres seemingly existed apart
from the c reative personal ity of their authors, Ševču k stresses that the literat ure
of the Rena issance and t he Baroque, especi ally the la er, w as partic ularly in sert-
ed into the life and historical processes of its time, to which it actively reacted.
Ševčuk divides Ukrainian literature of the 16th through 18th centuries in-
to three periods: the early Baroque, the developed Baroque, and the late (at-
tenuated) Baroque. e early Baroque period goes from Ivan Vyšens’kyj to the
1640s, that is, up to shortly aer the foundation of the Kyiv Mohyla College
(from 1701 Academy); Ševčuk states that Baroque was also cultivated in West-
ern Ukraine and that it oen ‘combined’ with the Renaissance. e developed
Baroque, according to Ševčuk, began at the Kyiv Mohyla College, absorbed in
itself the so-called Baroque classicism, and lasted until the fall of the Hetman
Mazepa or even later until the fall of Hetman Skoropads’kyj and the writing of
Litopys Samijla Velyčka in 1725. As to the late Baroque, Ševčuk rightly arms
that its European dimension, such as Rococo, did not develop in Ukrainian li-
terature (which, as he states, was already noted by D. Čy ževs’kyj), and acquired
dierent characteristics associated with the Enlightenment and with elements
of pseudo-classicism.
In the nal part of h is introduction, Ševču k expounds t he criter ia that guided
his work: they quite clearly demonstrate the progress of his approach as com-
pared to previous literary histories. He broaches early-modern Ukrainian lite-
rature taking into account its specicities, in the rst place its language(s), both
literally and guratively. As for the gurative sense, the author underlines that
regard ing high poet ry, the langu age of feeling wa s mostly e xtraneous to it, whi le
the language of intellect prevailed. In fact, literary creation was considered as
a science which could be taught and learned: hence, its creative expression was
the language of the intellect, and not that of ‘feelings’. As for the literal sense,
Ukrainian literature of the examined period was multilingual, and if one does
not consider this fact, it is dicult to comprehend its literary process in depth.
Ševčuk lists two other principles that guided his exposition: the rst is rela-
ted to the fact that literar y production took place in de nite centers (either near
a patron or at an institution of higher learning, where poetics and rhetoric were
studied) and from there it spread to the rest of Ukraine or to a denite region.
e following and most important principle is constituted by the criteria which
guided the author in his choice of works (including anonymous ones) and au-
thors. W hat unites t hese criteri a is that they are t he expression of an a esthetic ap-
proach: the author declares he has selected authors and work s for: 1. their being
inscribed in t he living l ife; 2. their being cha racteristic of the litera ry process; 3.
the aesthetic relevance of the literary works. In this regard, t he author is keen to
stress that his position is not an academic one, but rather that of an artist, i.e. he
142
GIOVANNA SIEDINA
chose those works which awakened an aesthetic impression in him, and can be
of interest to the contemporary reader, without aspiring to completeness in his
treatment of the literary periods. Quite interesting, in this respect, is his claim
that he preferred to illustrate those works which lend themselves to a double,
sub-textual reading, and that he tried to provide his own version of this read-
ing. For this reason, he also wrote short compendia with a concise overview of
all the literary works of the examined periods.
Let us now t urn to Ševču k’s characterizat ion of the Renais sance main ly con-
tai ned in the rst volume, in the chapter Vidrodž ennja i Reformacija v ukrajins’ kij
kul’turi (XV-XVII st.). In the rst place, the author gives an assessment of the
past approach to the topic: the fact that only Cyrillic works were considered to
be part of U krai nian literat ure led to the conclusion t hat the Renais sance as such
did not concern Ukrainian literature.
Ševčuk honestly declares that he cannot take upon himself the duty to
comprehensively illustrate the issue, but that his intention is to indicate some
lines of development that need to be pu rsued further in order to obta in a deep-
er knowledge of the penetration of Renaissance ideas in Ukraine. e author
tries to give an assessment of all the elements at stake in this process. He re-
constructs the travels of the Ruthenian youth to western European countries
in order to pursue their education and their subsequent return home or to
nearby countries with new ideas and concepts acquired abroad. Such travels
became so frequent that in 1457 the great prince Kazimierz Jagailowicz gave
freedom of travel to foreign countries to the noble youth. Ševčuk also sketch-
ily reconstructs the relationship of Roman-Catholics and Orthodox between
the 14th and 16th centuries, and in doing this he underlines that ‘Ukrainian’
(Ruthenian or rus’ki, i.e. Rusian)8 Catholic humanists generally tried to have
peaceful relationships with Orthodox. However, he does not fail to mention
Polish-Catholic expansion.
Ševču k disting uishes bet ween Ruthenia n writers who were Cat holic, on one
side, and representatives of Polish-Ukrainian poetry, on the other. Among the
former, he list s Pavlo Rusyn i z Krosna, Mykol a Husovs’ kyj, Hryhor ij Čuj Rusyn
iz Samb ora, Heorhij Tyč yns’ kyj Rute nec’, Iva n Turobin s’k yj Rutenec’, Sebast’ jan
Fabian Klenovyč, Stanislav Orichovs’kyj, Ivan Dombrov’skyj, and with some
doubt Symon Pekalid9. Among the representatives of Polish-Ukrainian poetry
he names S. Sy monid, the brothers Zy morovyč , M. Paškovs’ kyj, J. Verešč yns’k yj,
A. Ča hrovs’kyj, S. Okol’s’ky j, V. K ic’ky j, and Jan Ščasny j-Herburt. Ševčuk t hen
comments both on these writers’ love for Rus’, as manifested in their poetry,
comments and statements, and on their religious tolerance, a fruit of their hu-
manism. It is exactly this part of the Catholic world in Ukraine that tried to
8 For a sc holarly reco nstruc tion of the na me Rus’ and rel ated ethnony ms, see Da nylenko 2 004.
9 As for Catholic Ruthenian writers, Ševčuk correctly states that in spite of their religious
confession, they did not forget their ‘sweet Rus’ homeland,’ and they without fail stressed
their Rusian, that is Ukrainian, belonging.
143
HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
maintain peaceful relationships with Orthodoxy, despite the problem of Pol-
ish-Catholic expansion.
As rega rds at least some of the mentioned writers, which could be dened as
having a ‘multiple identity’ (e.g. Sebast’jan Fabian Klenovyč/Sebastian Fabian
Klonowic), it seems to me that Ševčuk’s approach is too simplistic and straight-
forward. Some of them certainly identied as Ukrainian as well, but the issue
of their ‘ethnic’ belonging should be approached in a more sophisticated way,
taking into account the multinational environment in which they developed10.
Ševču k’s character ization of the Ita lian Rena issance is short and schemat ic:
he divides it into three periods, early-Renaissance, high Renaissance and the
last period, which is characterized by the violation of harmony and the grad-
ual combination of ancient motifs and bizarre forms which characterized the
Baroque style. In the rst place, the terminological coexistence of the terms
Renesans and its Ukrainian correspondent Vidrodžennja, which seem to be
used interchangeably, should be noted. Indeed, the author uses Renesans to in-
dicate the wider phenomenon, and Vidrodžennja to indicate the three periods
into which it is divided. Moreover, he uses the term Renesans at times with a
capital leer, other times with the lowercase, thus creating a potential confu-
sion between the proper noun and the common noun11. Ševčuk notes that the
Renaissance in Ukraine did not embrace all artistic spheres and existed only
as one of the aesthetic currents: this statement, however, remains somewhat
unclear since he does not specify which other currents he has in mind. Be that
as it may, Ševčuk explains that the reason for this was Ukraine’s close relation
to the Byzantine cultural sphere and its rejection of Western culture which
reached Ukraine through Poland. For this reason, he adds, the representatives
of Renaissance forms in U krainian literature were in the rst place not Ortho-
dox, but Catholic, belonging to the so-called Catholic Rus’. e term, which
appeared in the 16th and rst half of the 17th century, indicated those young
men who at the end of the 15th and in the 16th century went to Western Eu-
rope to study in universities and oen became Catholic. eir ethnic identity
is specied by the appellation which they usually added to their name, such
as rusyn, rutenec’, roksoljanyn. However, their confessional identity did not
‘coincide’ with their ‘ethnic’ patriotism, i.e. they could and oen did support
the Ukrainian (Rus’) cultural development and renewal although oen being
Catholic. e literature that some of these young men created, as Ševčuk indi-
cates, is in the Renaissance poetics, built on Classical models and Humanistic
ideas. is literature, Ševču k recalls, evoked the reac tion of the representatives
of the trad itional ‘Byz antine’ cur rent of Ukra inian leers, in the rst place Ivan
10 To understand the complexit y of the national aribution of some of these poets su ce it to
say that in his essay in this volume Niedźwiedź denes Sebastian Klonowic as “one of the
leadi ng Polish poets of h is time”.
11 On p. 19 Ševčuk species that he uses the capital initial in the words “Ренесанс” and
“Бароко” when they indicate the epochs, and the lowercase initial when they mean an ar-
tistic method.
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GIOVANNA SIEDINA
Vyšens’kyj. e polemical works of the laer, the author notes, marked the
transition to the Baroque, which, in the Ukrainian conditions meant the com-
bination of what he calls Byzantinism with the Renaissance, and the assimila-
tion of Refor mation ideas. He correc tly indicates t he main characteri stic of the
Ukrainian reception of Renaissance poetics: it is rarely found in a ‘pure’ form,
being frequently combined with Baroque elements.
Ševčuk then treats in some detail the works of the aforementioned authors.
I will highlight here only a few points of his analysis, which will help us to un-
derstand his approach . As to Neo-Lati n poetry, throug h which Human istic and
Renaissance poetics mainly passed, the author mentions that the most ancient
work of Uk rainia n Neo-Latin poet ry is considered to be t he poetic introduct ion
to the book Prohnostyna ocinka 1483 roku by Heorhij (Jurij) Drohobyč-Koter-
mak, which was published in Rome. Ševčuk recalls only a few lines, which con-
tain a sort of poetic declarat ion of the author. ey are devoted to his books and
the poet ex presses the wish that they may be usef ul since they are Miner va’s o-
spring, and not wrien for laughter.
is distinction between high and low registers also characterizes the po-
etics of Pavlo Rusyn iz Krosna, whose biography receives great aention by
Ševčuk. e author shows how the dierent hypotheses about Pavlo’s national
origin, whether German, Polish or Hungarian are unfounded, and that he can
only be considered Ukrainian (rusyn). As to his oeuvre, Ševčuk states that it be-
longs to the early Renaissance, when art had not yet experienced a break with
Medieva l traditions a nd still rema ined in the range of religious topics, but at the
same time was expanding its repertoire to secular themes based on the imita-
tion of ancient paerns and poetics. Indeed, one type of poetry Pavlo devotes
himself to is that of spiritual poetry, concerning saints, Biblical characters and
the like. Another type consists of panegyric works devoted to various impor-
tant persons, wrien in the form of odes or elegies. And nally, the third type is
constituted by meditative-didactic lyrics, in which Pavlo Rusyn expressed his
aitude towards books, art, poetry, war, his homeland, the world, and life. is
type, in Ševčuk’s opinion, represents the most valuable part of his oeuvre, and
I agree. us, the author lingers to analyze this part of Pavlo Rusyn’s works; I
will dwell on a few moments. ey constitute, in my opinion, key motifs which
are a stable legacy of Humanism and the Renaissance in Ukrainian Neo-Latin
poetry. In the rst place, we nd the idea that poetry is a gi of the gods. In the
second, the conviction that the world in general is uncertain and fragile, and
that all earthly values are short-lived: states, cities, powerful rulers, ancient he-
roes, and material goods, such as jewelry. Only poetry is capable of maintain-
ing the memory of these persons, events, and facts. Clearly, this thought has a
long history starting from Classical antiquity, and in later Neo-Latin Ukrain-
ian poetry it is oen associated with the poetic legacy of Horace, especially in
his ode to Censorinus (Carm. IV, 8)12. Another theme noted by Ševčuk, which
12 See Siedina 2 017: 150-153.
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HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
will be developed by poets of later generations, such as S. Klenovyč, S. Pekalid,
and S. Počas’kyj, is the invitation to Apollo and the muses to sele in the poet’s
country. However, the rst author to speak of a Ukrainian national Parnassus
on the hi lls of L’viv, as Ševčuk remarks, wi ll be S. Klenov yč in his poem Roksola-
nia (1584). is theme, in relation to Kyiv, will be later developed by poets con-
nected to the Kyiv-Mohylian cultural elite.
Ševčuk devotes much aention to S. Klenovyč and his enigmatic poem
Roksolania, published in 1584 in Cracow. is work, as he stresses, is indeed
intriguing: it is the rst poem devoted to Ukraine, a land that evidently fas-
cinated the author for its nature, its cities, and its history. Although much re-
mains unknown (how its plan came about, how long he had been writing it,
who supported its publication), the dedication to the most eminent senate of
the L’viv community testies to a probable support by the laer. Klenovyč ex-
presses the convict ion that the hil ls of L’viv c an worthi ly replace the Greek Par-
nassus, since Apollo has already seled there. is land, in fact, is not poor; in
it, agriculture and herding are well developed. If Clio was the rst muse to set-
tle in Rus’ (and indeed the author makes her narrate the history of Rus’), the
others soon followed. As Ševčuk remark s, however, the muses brought here by
Klenovyč are learned and devout, and they came to Rus’ to inspire high po-
etry, not lower forms of verbal expression. is is the typical Renaissance op-
position of high and low, learned and popular poetry. Klenovyč’s goal, as he
states it, is to make this land known to the whole of Europe. is is the rea-
son he writes in Latin. Ševčuk stresses the fact that, although being ethnical-
ly Polish, Klenovyč does not deem Rus’ (Ukraine) to be a part of Poland, but
recognizes its ethnic self-suciency, since he calls it krajina (but he does not
specify whether the poet uses exactly this word or a Latin one). In my opin-
ion, however, one cannot know with certainty Klenovyč’s thought just by the
use of a single word. Although Klenovyč writes that the land of Rus’ extends
to the Lithuanian borders, its woods up to the Muscovite land, includes Pskov
and Novgorod, and in the north the Rus’ borders reach the eternal snows and
ice, he celebrates a territory which is much smaller. It is, in fact constituted by
Halyč, Podillja, Volyn’ and the Kyiv region, that is by the ‘U krainian’ territory
of the former Principality of Halyč-Volyn’.
Although sometimes in Klenovyč lyric feeling prevails over objective ob-
servation, and he celebrates the land that fascinates him so much, the poet has
indeed provided us wit h a unique ‘encyclopedia’ of Rus’ life. Indeed, as Ševčuk
remarks, a wealth of extremely valuable data is scaered throughout the po-
em about how the Rus’ people live, which are their customs, how they raise
children, how they farm, how they work wood, how they make carts, wheels,
plows, how they graze the cale, their folk legends and traditions, the ora
and fauna surrounding them, and much more. Ševčuk’s allegorical reading of
the goddess Galatea, who, having arrived in Rus’, lls the udder of cows with
milk when they drink from a noisy river, as the arrival to Rus’ of the cultural
foundations of the Renaissance originated in a maritime country, maybe Italy,
seems somewhat unjustied.
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GIOVANNA SIEDINA
Ševču k rightly obser ves that Klenov yč was probably the rst writer to pro-
vide a poetical description of Ukrainian cities. He observes that the cities de-
scribed by Klenov yč, with the exception of Kyiv, all belong to one region, and
that the city of Ostroh, although it belonged to the same region, is not includ-
ed, and this exclusion is hardly accidental. e main reason, according to the
author, is the fact that Ostroh at that time was a lively cultural center, led by
the prince Kostjantyn Ostroz’kyj, whose cultural orientation was rather to-
wards Kyivan Rus’ and Byzantiu m than towards Western Europe and entailed
a rejection of ‘Latin’ cultural inuence. Although there was not much anta-
gonism between the two factions (in Ostroh, a lile later, another Neo-Latin
poet, Symon Pekalid w ill appear, and he w ill be a protégé of prince Kostja nty n
Ostroz’ kyj), Klenovyč prefers not to mention the city. Further on, Ševčuk de-
votes a great deal of aention to the religious issue and debunks the vision of
Klenovyč as a supporter of Catholic expansion. On the contrary, as his work
demonstrates, he felt a deep anity with Rus’. He called L’viv ‘glory of the
people’, the honor and purpose of his work. He furthermore praised the Rus’
people for their fostering of the Orthodox faith, while he judged the dissolute
life of the Protestants.
is aitude not only of religious tolerance, but of open support of the Rus’
faith, arms Ševčuk, is shared also by another Polish-Ukrainian writer of that
time, namely Stanislav Orichovs’kyj, and later on also by Jan Ščasnyj-Herbut.
However, both these authors had or felt Ukrainian ‘blood’ in their veins, while
very l ile is know n about Klenov yč’s orig ins, stud ies, or personal li fe, except that
he came from a bourgeois fa mily, spent some years of h is youth in L’v iv, received
a solid education (judging from his poem), and moved to Lublin in 1574, where
he married and worked in dierent posts of the city administration. Because of
his i nterest in U krai nian history, of his refer ring to the mores and the fait h of the
fathers’, Ševču k puts forward t he hypothesis that he had some Uk rainian blood,
or maybe that he was of Armenian or Armenian-Ukrainian origin, descending
from those A rmenians who had seled in Ukrainian lands before the establish-
ment of the Polish domination and who always remembered that those lands
were Ukrainian. Among the facts that might indicate Klenovyč’s Armenian or
mi xed Armenian-Ukra inian orig in are: in hi s poem he celebrates L’viv, Ka mjan-
ec’-Podil’s’kyj ans Zamost’; when he speaks about L’viv as the rst city of Rus’,
the poet underlines its Ukrainian character and says nothing about the Poles;
about the city’s minorities, he expresses negativity about Jews while separately
noting t he Armeni ans in a positiv e way. A nother possible ind ication of Klenov yč’s
Armenian origin is the fact that three Roman Catholic writers of Armenian or-
igin, namely S. Symonid (Szymonovyc) and the brothers Zymorov yč, imitated
Klenov yč. At that time ties between the Armenian and Ukrainian populations
were close and it was oen impossible to distinguish A rmenians from Uk raini-
ans si nce the former oen had U krain ian fami ly names, says Ševčuk , quoting Ja.
Daškevyč, author of a work on Ukrainian-Armenian relations. Klenovyč’s Ar-
menian origin would certainly ex plain some facts, rst of all his open demarca-
tion from the Poles. But, what is more important, in my opinion, is Klenovyč’s
147
HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
complaint that Renaissance ideas reached Ukraine in a weak way, reported by
Ševčuk. is lament is contained in an allegorical way in a couple of lines of the
poem Roksolania, quoted by Ševčuk unfortunately only in Ukrainian transla-
tion: “Піснею я Пієріди спровадив сюди, щоб влекшити/Жаль свій, що в
нас тут нема вкритої лавром гори”13 (Ševčuk 2004-2005, 1: 156).
Quite interestingly, Ševčuk observes that dierently from those men of let-
ters who belonged to the Ostroh circle, Klenovyč wished to secularize poetry,
i.e. to separate it as much as possible from the Church, but that this aspiration
was ‘too bold’ for his time. Other young Renaissance poets like him, who had
studied in Western European universities, could not nd a way to apply their
knowledge in their motherland. Ševčuk names Jurij Drohobyč, Pavlo Rusyn iz
Krosna, H. Tyčyns’ kyj, and S. Orichovs’kyj, all of whom felt themselves sons of
Rus’, but lived most of their lives away from it. On the contrary, Klenovyč ‘re-
turned’ to it, singing Rus’ in his poem. His depiction of L’viv and Kyiv is quite
interesting: while the former was then considered the capital of Ukraine, the
laer is not compared to ancient Troy, despite the fact that it was in ruins. On
the contrary, he compares Kyiv to ancient Rome, and states it has the same im-
portance that the eternal city had for ancient Christians, probably also because
in it, in the Caves Monastery, the imperishable relics of Orthodox clerics and
believers were preserved. is way, Klenovyč establishes a link between L’viv
and Kyiv. Indeed, as Ševčuk remarks, at the beginning of the 17th century it is
to Kyiv that intellectuals from Halyč such as Jov Borec’kyj, Z. Kopystens’kyj,
J. Pletenec’kyj, and P. Berynda directed themselves, pressed by Catholic reac-
tion. ey will establish in Kyiv a signicant cultural center, a printing house
and a type of college that shortly aer will become the Kyiv Mohyla College.
It needs to be stressed that Ševčuk tries to objectively analyze the contri-
bution of those representatives of the so-called “Catholic Rus’”, who, in So-
viet times were collectively marked as men who only wanted evil for their
people, who betrayed the Rus’ and moved away from their roots. In reality, as
Ševčuk asserts, the picture was more variegated, especially for what concerns
the 16th century, which was generally characterized by religious tolerance.
is picture will change sharply in the 17th century as a consequence of the
Catholic Counter-Reformation when the ‘voices of dissent’ will become in-
creasingly rare. One of them in the 17th century, who espoused Humanistic
and Renaissance ideas was Ivan Dombrovs’kyj, author of the poem Camoe-
nae Borysthenides (published ca. 1619)14. Ševčuk aptly denes Dombrovs’kyj
as continuing the literary tradition of Catholic Rus’, however “Kyiv-based”,
so to say, since the main thought of his work was the revival of the Ukrainian
13 “I brought the Muses here with a song to ease/my sorrow, we do not have a laurel-covered
mountain here”.
14 at Dombrov s’kyj’s patriot ism did not t into the nar row Soviet sc hemes, which identi ed
national and confessional belonging, was demonstrated already by Jaremenko in his intro-
duction to the 1988 antholog y Ukrajins’ ka poezija XVII stolija (Jaremenko 1988: 14).
148
GIOVANNA SIEDINA
state building15. For this reason, he provides a long historical description of
his homeland from the time of Kyivan Rus’, and underlines that despite hav-
ing been the object of foreign invasions, it did not succumb. In his analysis of
Dombrovs’kyj’s Camoenae Borysthenides and Klenovyč’s Roksolania, Ševčuk
high lights sim ilarities and di erences. Just li ke Klenovyč, Dombrovs’ kyj does
not include in the history of Rus’ the people of moschy, the ancestors of Rus-
sians, consideri ng them a northern tribe which Rus’ kept i n submission. How-
ever, for what concerns the borders of Rus’, they dier in that Dombrovs’kyj
makes t hem coincide with t hose of ancient Scythia. erefore, for him, Rus’ is
bordered by the river Dnister, the northern coast of the Black Sea, further on
by Colchis, that is Caucasus, and by the Caspian Sea . e northern border was
constituted by the Ural Mountains and by the ‘Persians’; the western border
was constituted by the river Wisłok, a tributary of Vistula (Wisła). e inter-
est of these borders, as it is noted by Ševčuk, resides in the fact that they coin-
cide with those of ancient Scythia. us, the successor of the laer is deemed
by Dombrovs’kyj Rus’-Ukraine, and not Muscovy, and this opinion is shared
by the Ukrainian chroniclers of Cossack tradition.
Similarly to what Klenovyč did in his Roksolania, Dombrovs’kyj includes
inhabitants of Novgorod and Pskov among the Rus’ people. e poem is devot-
ed to Bohuslav Radoševs’kyj, abbot of the Holy Cross church on the lysa hora
in Kyiv, and Roman-Catholic bishop of Kyiv, and its goal, besides manifesting
the glory of Rus’, is to remind the addressee that in spite of his religious confes-
sion, he is called to ser ve the homeland of his ancestors. erefore, in his recon-
struction of the history of Rus’ through legendary and historical personages,
Dombrovs’kyj also inserts the Somykovs’kyj family, from whom Radoševs’kyj
descended, among the Halycian-Volhynian princes. at the laer did not con-
sider his bei ng Roman-Catholic an obstacle to serving his people is mani fested,
among other things, by his tolerant aitude towards the Orthodox confession,
its representatives (such as Petro Mohyla, with whom the bishop had good rela-
tions), its adherents and its sh rines. Ševč uk states th at the poem is wri en mostly
in Renaissa nce poetics, that i s, ‘se culari zed’; it does not speak of spir itua l and ec-
clesiastical maers. Moreover, dierently from the majority of the literature of
the rst half of the 16th century, which is characterized by a mixture of Renais-
sance and Baroque elements, in Camoenae Borysthenides the only feature that
can be aributed to the Baroque style is the word play. For the rest, according
to Ševču k, it begins w ith a tradit ional preface with numerous Cla ssical similar i-
ties and w ith the declaration of the main goal of the work: to manifest the glory
of Rus’. Despite the plural in the title, Dombrovs’kyj ‘brings’ to Ukraine only
15 Ševčuk considers Dombrovs’kyj a continuer of Josyp Vereščyns’kyj, the Catholic bishop
of Kyiv (1592-1598). Vereščyns’kyj cherished projects of organizing public life in Ukraine
thro ugh the creat ion of a milit ary force abl e to repel armed a acks; he al so dreamt of ren ew-
ing the importance of Kyiv as the capital of Ukrainian lands. It is for his focus on the res-
toration of the Ukrainian state-building, which he shared with Vereščyns’kyj, that Ševčuk
deems Dombrovs’ky j his continuer.
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HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
one muse, Clio, the muse of history. She is made to speak aer the long account
of the history of Rus’, to glorify Radoševs’kyj also by narrating the deeds of his
ancestors and family members.
Unfortunately, Ševčuk does not provide references as to the extant printed
copies of the poem or to existing manuscripts, if any. All quotations are provid-
ed only in Ukrainian translation and this, as already noted, does not allow for
the appreciation of poetical reminiscences and literary topoi, as well as the ver-
bal richness and metaphorical ornamentation. Another drawback of Ševčuk’s
narration is that he does not always argue his claims. For instance, as already
mentioned, he does not provide support for his statement that Camoenae Bor ys-
thenides is wrien mostly in Renaissance poetics; the only hint is his assertion
that the poem is secu larized. However, a deeper ana lysis reveals much more. As
Jaremenko had outli ned in 1988, it is Dombrovs’ kyj’s approach to his tory, his re-
jection of divine providence as history’s driving force, as well as of the vision of
histor y as the implementat ion of the divine pl an of salvation foreseen in adva nce
that a ligns it w ith Ren aissance poet ics. On the contra ry, in Dombrovs’k yj’s poem
man is presented as an ac tive subject of the h istorical process, whose act ions are
historically determined, and are not caused by God’s providence. It is for this
reason, according to Jaremenko, that in his poem God is mentioned ver y rarely,
whi le princes, kings and generals a re much more present and Bibl ical charac ters
are v irtua lly absent. Sim ilarly, for Dombrovs’k yj, dig nity, talent, i ntellec t, vir tue,
and valor are characteristics t hat can raise a n individua l above others to occupy
a higher place in the social hierarchy, while a person’s noble origin should serve
as a stimulus to serve his homeland and not as a right to rule. ese and other
important observations of Jaremenko’s concerning Dombrovs’kyj’s poem are
not mentioned in Ševčuk’s exposition.
Anot her drawback of Ševču k’s work is his approach to bibl iographical sourc-
es: indeed, he ment ions only Uk rainia n, Russia n and very seldom Polish s ources .
is st atement concerns the las t work, on whose t reatment by Ševčuk I w ill brief-
ly linger, that is, the poem Evcharystyrion albo Vdjačnost’ by Sofronij Počas’kyj
(1632). In his analysis of this poem Ševčuk, seems particularly interested in in-
vestigating how the author succeeds in establishing a literary Mount Parnassus
and Helicon in Kyiv through his learned poetry. e interesting and important
issue of the genre of the poem is not touched upon at all; nor does Ševčuk speak
about how Sofronij Počas’kyj treats the addressee of the poem, that is Petro
Mohyla. Instead, the author distinguishes in the poem elements that can be at-
tributed to the Renaissance and the Baroque and lists them. Among the former
he enumerates: the glorication of the sciences, Apollo, the Greek muses, the
art s, the creation of Par nassus and Hel icon, ancient similes, a clear style wit hout
verbal g ures and subtexts, that is, double reading, the knowledge of the world,
and an apolog y of reason and educat ion. However, Ševčuk notes t hat the author,
throug h the gloric ation of the one Chris tian God, His Church ’s shepherds and
the Vi rgin Mar y, denies t he Renaissa nce, and i nstead adheres to a Ba roque poet-
ics. To the laer he ascr ibes the poet’s interest in ma ers of faith, а v ision of God
as the creator of the world cycle, the one who determines time and the changes
150
GIOVANNA SIEDINA
of the year’s seasons, and the contradictory character of the gures he glories
(Apollo and the Muses on one side, and Christian gures and the Virgin Mary
on the other). For all of these rea sons, Ševčuk say s that the poem Evcharystyrion
albo Vdjačnost’ seems to be ending early Baroque in Ukraine, which originated
in a combination of Renaissance and medieval poetics, because Renaissance
poetics is both used and denied in the work.
3. Istorija ukrajins’koji literatury (2014-)
e new history of Ukrainian literature, Istorija ukrajins’koji literatury. U 12 to-
mach, the rst volume of which came out in 2014, is a very dierent literary his-
tory from Ševču k’s. In the rst place, according to the projec t, it should be a col-
lective work in twelve volumes, of which only four have been published. It is an
academic work , originate d by the Instit ute of Literature of t he National Academy
of Science of U kraine a nd published by the publi shing house “Nau kova Dumk a”.
e history of literature proper in the rst volume is preceded by a Pref-
ace (Peredmova, pp. 5-22) by Mykola Žulyns’kyj, the director of the Institute
of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In this preface the author
broadly traces the millennial literary history of Ukraine, especially concentrat-
ing on the modern period. However, the volume lack s an introduction that may
set this unprecedented collective work in the framework of Ukrainian literary
historiography. Such an introduction is found instead at the beginning of the
second volume.
e last part of the rst volume and the second volume are devoted to the
period which interests us. e rst volume, titled Davnja literatura (X – perša
polovyna XVI st.), is divided into two major sections: Literatura Kyjivs’ko-
ji Rusi. Rannje ta zrile Seredn’oviččja (X – perša polovyna XIII st.) and Litera-
tura pizn’noho seredn’oviččja (druha polovyna XIII – perša polovyna XVI st.).
is second section at its end contains a chapter on Latin language literature
(Latynomovna literatura), and this is a welcome novelty compared to prev ious
histories of Ukrainian literature. Let us now turn to the characterization of
Humanism and the Renaissance in Ukrainian literature. e literary devel-
opment of the Late Middle Ages, described in the chapter Literaturnyj proces,
is characterized as the one possessing the most ‘white spots’ in the history of
Ukrainian literature, a sort of ‘pause in the literary development’, following
Dmytro Čyževs’kyj’s words. Aer a description of the literary genres which
continue those of the previous epoch, in the penultimate paragraph we read:
“At the end of the 15th, rst half of the 16th century, poets appear in Ukraine
who write in Latin and are in one way or another connected with Western Eu-
ropean Renaissance culture”16.
16 “Наприкінці ХV-у першій половині Х VІ ст. в Україні з’явл яються поети, що творять
латинською мовою і так чи інакше пов’язані із західноєвропейською ренесансною
кул ьтурою” (Dončyk et al. 2014-, 1: 571).
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HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
3.1. On Literature written in Latin
3.1. e chapter Latynomovna literatura by M. Trofymuk, occupies pages 709-
728. e author states that Neo-Latin Renaissance poetry spread mainly in
Halyčyna (Galicia) at the Polish-Ukrainian cultural cross-border, which rep-
resented the border between Western and Eastern Christianity. e author
divides Neo-Latin Ukrainian literature into two periods, the rst, so called
“rusyns’kyj” (last quarter of the 15th century, and through the 16th century),
from the name ‘rusyn’, which most authors aributed to themselves, and the
second “roksolans’kyj”, from the name that appears in many works and docu-
ments of the period 1632-1730, w hich saw the greatest ourishing of U krain ian
Neo-Latin literature. As to the long-debated and still relevant issue of the ‘na-
tional ’ belonging of the cultural legacy of Neo-Latin writers who spent most of
their l ives outside Ukraine, and who are oen cal led ‘cross-border writers’17, the
author oers a peculiar ‘ukrainocentric solution’. He distinguishes Ukrainian
Neo-Latin literature and the Neo-Latin literature of U kraine. e former com-
prises authors of Ukrainian origin or ukrainized authors, whose activity took
place in the territor y of Ukraine and whose themes concerned Ukraine and ex-
pressed the i nterests of Uk rainia n society. e laer embrace s all works in Latin
concerning Ukrainian ethnic terr itories, that is, work s of Ukrainian Neo-Latin
literature, works of foreign authors about Ukraine, and works of those authors
who came f rom Ukra ine, but whose activ ity was con nected w ith non-Ukr ainian
cult ural centers and whose works touched contemporar y European issue s. Two
other factors to be considered for the selection and the aribution of the mate-
ria l are the self-identi cation of the authors (which c an be inferred by the na mes
they used: rusyn, rutenec’, roskolan) and the dedicat ion of these works to Ukra in-
ian rulers, princes, church dignitaries, as well as to cities, regions and the like.
However, it seems to me that the second category is too wide and has been
devised to include into t he ‘literature of Uk raine’ even authors (a nd their works)
whose belonging to that literature is at best only partial, and whose manifold
identity is mainly or partly shaped also by other ethnic and cultural contexts.
e author then names ve authors, who identied themselves as rusyn,
rutenec’, or roskolan. ey a re: Jurij Drohobyč-Koter mak, Stan islav Orichovs’ kyj,
Heorhij Tyčyns’ kyj-R utenec’, H ryhorij Čuj-Ru syn iz Sa mbora, and Pavlo Rus yn
iz Krosna. Before broaching their literary production, the author briey sum-
marizes the styl istic and thematic charac teristics of t he literature of the Renais-
sance, rst and foremost the i mitation of the genre s and thematic pec uliarities of
Classical literature, especially Latin. Other characterist ics he highl ights are the
rebirth of the Classical ideal of a harmonious personality, which coexists with
the surrounding environment in an agreeable way. Actually, states the author,
this ideal in the Renaissance was everybody’s duty, and art and literature could
help men achieve it. is ideal is linked to the concept of altera natura, an ideal,
17 Ukrainian-Polish, Ukrainian-Belarusian, Lithuanian-Polish.
152
GIOVANNA SIEDINA
spiritual world without the negative sides of the real world which, according to
the humanists, should bring humankind closer to the mentioned ideal. Other
important features of the Renaissance outlined by the author in a few lines are:
the artistic celebration of the beauty of nature and of native places; a specic
patriotism, both national and universal (humanists as inhabitants of a specic
orbis terrarum humanistici); the stress on education (the system of the seven li-
beral arts, elaborated in t he late Middle Ages); the emancipation of literar y cre-
ation as an independent sphere of art; and the publishing of works of Classical
authors. In general, the author stresses how the Renaissance became a turning
point of the spiritual life of Europe. At the same time, he recalls that it is hard
to separate tradition and innovation when speaking of the work of concrete au-
thors, si nce their le gacy shows their being rooted in t he previous litera ry process
while simultaneously incorporating new and contemporary tendencies. And
thus, the synthesis of forms and means of expression which characterizes two
epochs, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, according to the author, marks
the future synthesis of their worldview, artistic forms and means of expression
which was realized by the Baroque style. e author aributes to this synthe-
sis another peculiarity of the “mentioned periods” (evidently the Renaissance
and the Baroque): mu ltiling ualism and macaron ic word usage. e author does
not illustrate this issue in deta il, as would have been t, he only ex poses in short
the pecu liar situation of Ukraine, stressing that the “regional consciousness” of
Ruthenians was manifold, depending upon their belonging to dierent social,
confessional, and ethnic groups. Language also was a key factor, in that it was
lin ked with a specic sy stem and means of ex pression and topics. If on the terri-
tory of the Rzecz Pospolita the main means of communication was Polish, Lat-
in had a key role as the language of the church, science, and political relations.
As to Ukra inian authors, if they had received primary instruction in Ukrainian
lands, they al so used Church Slavon ic and Ukr ainian (rus’ka, prosta) langua ge18 .
e author then goes on to illustrate the work of the ve mentioned authors
to which he adds a sixth, less known, Ivan Turobins’kyj Rutenec’. He also pro-
vides the Latin name of each author. ey are respectively: Georgius Drohobicz
de Russia, Paulus Crosnensis Ruthenus, Georgius Ticzensis Ruthenus, Ioannes
Tu robinius Rut henus, Czuj Vigi lantius Sa mboritanus R uthenus, Orichov ius Stani-
slaus (in Polish Or zechowski Stanisław). Greater aention and space a re devoted
to Pavlo Rusyn iz K rosna and Stanislav Orichovs’kyj because of the breadth and
depth of the issues dealt with in their poetry, a direct eect, besides their natural
talent, of the high level of the education they received in the best European uni-
versities of the time.
18 e author broaches the theme of the linguistic situation of Ukraine in quite a supercial
way. For the sake of clarity, we will recall that Moser thus dened prosta(ja) mova: “e
prosta(ja) mova was based on the R uthenian (U krain ian or Belor ussian) chancery l anguage
and developed into a litera ry language because of its growing poly functional ity, its increas-
ingly superregional character, and its stylistic variability” (Mozer 2002: 221). See also
Shevelov 1979: 576 . and footnote n. 6 above.
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HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
e treatment devoted to the works of Pavlo Rusyn iz Krosna seems some-
what sca nty compared to Ševč uk’s, and conta ins some contrad ictor y statements,
which are not further explained or claried. e presentation of Pavlo Rusyn’s
work is more an enumer ation of features than an ac tive interpret ation by the au-
thor. He states that Pavlo Rusyn’s poetry is a phenomenon of a period of transi-
tion: in spite of the fact that his works fully express all the themes, genres and
motifs of the Rena issance, “much of his literar y heritage belongs to the prev ious
epoch in terms of genre and theme, where spiritual poetry, works of the Mario-
logica l cycle, paneg yrics to sa ints, descr iptions of church matchmak ers, pecul iar
poetic motifs imbued with subtle sadness predominate”19. Earlier, however, the
author had stated that “the poet actively uses the ancient tools of poetry, typi-
cal of post-Renaissance poetry”20. And thus, Pavlo Rusyn’s poetry belongs to
the Renaissance; however, a signicant part of his poetic legacy ‘belongs to the
previous epoch’, while he uses ‘Classical tools’ (“античний інструментарій”)
typical of post-Renaissance poetry. Indeed, from such a presentation, it is quite
a puzzle to try to understand how one should comprehend and inter pret the po-
etry of Pavlo Rusyn.
e author adds that the legacy of Pavlo Rusyn is also constituted by pa-
negy rics devoted to ecclesiastical and lay persons, to his friends and pupils, and
moral-didactic poetry. His use of Classical authors and Classical topoi is noted,
as well as addressing his books as living creatures, as lile children very dear to
him. e motif of the power of poetr y to give eternal life and glory to states and
cities, which of course has a long history, is remarked in Pavlo Rusyn’s poetry.
However, the author here too does not say anything about the long history of
this topos in ancient and more modern poetry.
As to Orichovs’kyj’s literary and cultural legacy, it is illustrated in great-
er detail, since it is said to be the manifestation of his belonging to European
culture and at the same time his being rooted in the Polish-Ukrainian reality
of his time. His coming from a two-confessional family (his father was cath-
olic, his mother orthodox) certainly made him a participant of two worlds;
his wide education, acquired in the best European universities, allowed him
to interpret the surrounding reality in a wider perspective. His multifaceted
writer’s talent found expression in literary works of dierent genres: epistles
(Epistola de coelibatu)21, Baptismus Ruthenorum (1544), speeches (De bello ad-
versus Turcas suscipiendo ad equites polonos oratio, 1543; Ad Sigismundum Polo-
19 “значна частина його літературної спадщини жанрово й тематично належить
попер едн ій еп осі, де п ерев ажа є духо вна пое зія , твори м аріоло гіч ного ци клу, па негі рик и
святим, описи церковних сват, свозєрідні віршовані мотиви, просякнуті витонченим
су мом” (Dončyk e t al. 2014-, 1: 716).
20 “Поет а ктивно використовує антични інструментарій віршописанн я, властивий д ля
постренесансної поезії” (ibidem).
21 To this theme, dear to him, Orichovs’kyj also dedicated the work Pro Ecclesia Christi
(1546), and the brochure De lege coelibatus (1551), addressed to the participants in the
Council of Trent.
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GIOVANNA SIEDINA
niae Turcica Secunda, 1544), tracts (Repudium Romae, which was not printed;
Policja królewstwa polskiego, 1565), a biography, and several pamphlets. For his
oratorical skills Orichovs’ky j was variously named ‘Latin/Rus’ Demosthenes’
and ‘contemporary Cicero’. It is not clear, however, why the author states that
if one compares Orichovs’kyj’s works with Classical texts, the former seem
fairly adequate, despite the fact that Latin texts of the 16th to 18th century are
always marked by the thinking of a particular author, and thus Classical and
Neo-Latin works are quite dierent.
Be that as it may, the author concludes by stating that the signicance of
Neo-Lat in literature for t he development of Ukra inian cu lture in the mentioned
period lays main ly in that it brought to Ukra inian ground the Classical-Renais-
sance acquisitions of European literature, and it enriched Ukrainian literature
with new themes and poetic means, “paving the way for such a un ique phenom-
enon as the culture of Ukrainian Baroque”22.
3.2 The second volume of Istorija ukrajins’koji literatury
In the second volume, in the section Oryhinal’na literatura, among the chapters
on the dierent literary genres, two chapters are devoted respectively to poetry
in Polish (Pol’s’komovna poezija) a nd poetr y and literature i n Latin (Latynomov-
na poezija and Latynomovna ukrajins’ka literatura).
At the beginning of the second volume one nds an introduction with the
title Davnja literatura (druha polovyna XVI-XVIII st.) by Mykola Sulyma. e
period is divided into three chronological sections, titled respectively: Litera-
tura nacional’noho vidrodžennja ta rann’oho Baroko (druha polovyna XVI-perša
polovyn a XVI I st.), Literatura zr iloho Baroko (druha polo vyna XV II-perša pol ovyna
XVII st.), Literatura pizn’oho Baroko (druha polovyn a XVI II st.). Each of these sec-
tions is d ivided into ve s ubsections: Istor yko-kul ’turni obstavy ny, Usna slovenis t’,
Literaturnyj proces, Oryhinal’na literatura, Perekladna literatura (this laer sub-
section is absent in the third section). is uniform organization of the literary
materia l exemplies the fact that the editors consider the literar y process of the
period as possessing similar characteristics.
As is c ustomar y for literary h istories, t he introduc tion is devoted to the an aly-
sis of histories of U krain ian literatu re, starting from t he scholarly begi nnings in
the 19th cent ury and endi ng with Muza Roksolans’ka by Valerij Ševč uk. A good
deal of aention is devoted to the literary histories by Mychajlo Hruševs’kyj
(rst volumes 1923 -27; the sixth volu me remained manuscript; the whole work
was republished in 1993) and Mychajlo Voznjak (1920-24). Among the merits
of the laer a re listed the analysis of Uk rainian elements in Polish literature a nd
of the literary output of Polish writers of Ukrainian origin, as well as the aen-
tion devoted to the publication of Ukrainian songs in Polish and Russian edi-
22 “Торуючи шля х до такого унікального явища, як культура у країнського бароко”
(Dončyk et al. 2014-, 1: 728).
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HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
tions. Voznjak is also praised, among other things, for having investigated the
awakening of Ukrainians’ interest in their past and culture in the 18th century.
Voznjak’s greatest merit, however, and the goal he set himself, is that of having
revealed the texts of ancient literary works and having presented them to the
wide academic community.
Fur ther on in the intro duction it is asser ted that a new stage i n the understa nd-
ing of the early modern period starts with the creation of the Taras Ševčenko
Inst itute of Literature of the Academy of Sc iences in 1926. In t he rst place, th is
was reected in the appearance of new methods. In addition to the philologi-
cal approach, we see the development of historical, sociological, stylistic, and
Marxist approaches. e work of the Commission of ancient Ukrainian literature
was quite important. Created in 1927, the members published important works
and texts of the literature in question. However, the onset of the darkest period
of the Soviet regime put an end to the free development of literary studies (as
happened in all branches of human sciences, and not only). Nonetheless, even
duri ng the Soviet period, useful studies conti nued to be car ried out in this eld.
For instance, Oleksandr Bilec’kyj, director of the Institute of Ukrainian litera-
ture from 1939 to 1941 and from 1944 to 1961, while on the one hand adher-
ing to Soviet parameters for Ukrainian literature23, continued fruitful research
activity in the eld.
Sulyma then goes on to illustrate the development of Ukrainian literary
history in emigration. Aer briey describing the work of M. Hnatyšak24, who
published his Istorija ukrajins’koji literatury in 1941 in Prague, he lingers on
illustrating the work of D. Čyževs’kyj, who declared to share Hnatyšak’s ap-
proach, especially for what concerns the formal analysis of literary works. I will
dwell here only on a few points. Suly ma synthesizes Čyževs’kyj’s theory on the
constant succession of opposite tendencies (styles) in the history of literature,
that are dened by t heir opposed char acteristic s: clar ity vs. depth, simplicity vs.
pomp, calm vs. movement, completeness in itself vs. boundless prospects, con-
centration vs. diversity, traditional canonicity vs. novelty, and others. As to the
Renaissance proper, as the author recalls, Čyževs’kyj characterized it as a ‘dis-
covery’ and ‘liberation’ of the indiv idual, as a rebirth of the ancient ideal of har-
mony, of balanced beauty. Sulyma does not agree with Čyževs’kyj’s statement
that Renaissance ideas barely and marginally reached Ukraine at the end of the
16th century from Poland, without having a signicant inuence. Indeed, he
notes that Čyževs’ky j does not consider such representatives of Uk rainian cul-
ture as Jurij Drohobyč and Pavlo Rusyn iz K rosna. In Čyževs’kyj’s opinion, the
23 e y were: the treat ment of the lite rature of Ky ivan Rus’ a s the ‘cradle’ of t he three Ea st Slavic
peoples , the denial o f the supposed ly nationa listic conc eptions of Uk rain ian litera ry proces s,
the denial of the continuity of its development, the application of sociological parameters to
literary h istory, and so on .
24 Of the ten epochs (that he called “styles”) of his periodization of Ukrainian literature, he
could illustrate only three: 1. Old Ukrainian style; 2. Byzantine style; 3. Late Byzantine
transitional style.
156
GIOVANNA SIEDINA
16th centu ry in Uk rainian cu lture, char acterized by rel igious str ife, represented
a sort of regression, as compared to the period between the 11th and 13th cen-
turies and to the ourishing of Baroque in the 17th and 18th centuries. Sulyma
notes how, in his characterization of the Baroque, Čyževs’kyj diers from his
predecessors, for example Hruševs’kyj, in that he lists the Baroque among the
dyna mic styles , and states that it rst approached the people’s cultu re, was looked
at with sympathy among the people and had a signicant inuence on popular
cult ure and art. e author goes on to i llustrate i n some detail Čyž evs’kyj’s treat-
ment of the Ukrainian Baroque, its literary genres, poetry (learned and popu-
lar), short prose, historical chronicles, as well as the aspects which need further
research (e.g., the un ion of old Christ ian tradit ions wit h Classica l elements, and
the constant cultivat ing of the form of works, a lso of those in which the main at-
tention is given to content, such as sermons, chronicles, and treatises). Sulyma
then briey discusses the other two histories of Ukrainian literature wrien in
the Soviet period. e former actually never saw the light because of a negative
review in 1947, probably because of the high level and the completeness of the
ana lyzed litera ry production, i.e. because of it s positive qual ities. Final ly, the au-
thor lingers on the 1967-1971 history of Ukrainian literature in 8 volumes and
lists as its merits “the complete representation of the literary process, coverage
of the history of Ukrainian literature as the original literature of a great nation,
and the literature of Kyivan Rus – as a fundamental component of Ukrainian
literature”25. e ideologica l constrai nts which author s encountered in thei r work
are not openly discussed, as Ševčuk had done when describing this history of
Uk rainia n literature. ey are only h inted at in the authors’ st atement, reported
by Sulyma, that they had to renounce a periodization by styles, that the theme
of Russian-Ukrainian relations had to be ‘adjusted’, and so had the evaluation
of the ideology of the Cossack staršyna, the treatment of 17th century literary
works in which Ivan Mazepa was spoken of, and so on.
e last ‘Soviet’ history of Ukrainian literature of 1987 in two volumes is
only mentioned. e author then turns to the post-Soviet period, and particu-
larly devotes his aention to Ševčuk’s Muza Roksolans’ka, which is praised as a
welcomed new reading of ancient a nd early-modern Uk rainian literature, espe-
cial ly for its aention to the mu ltil ingual dimension of Uk rainian literature and
to the relationship between literary works and the “living life”.
As to their own work, about two pages (28, 29, and six lines on page 30) are
devoted by the editors (Vid redaktoriv) to their own history of Ukrainian l itera-
ture. In the rst place, they st ress its novelty and its own merit s. In anal yzing the
literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, it is asserted that the authors look at
Uk rainian-Russian relations in a new way, and at the aspirations to the national
liberat ion of Ukrainia ns. e chapters devoted to l iterature w rien in Polish a nd
25 “Повнота представлення літерат урного процесу, висвітлення історії у раїнської
літерату ри як самобу тньої л ітерат ури ве ликого народу, а літерат ура Ки ївської Руси –
як ос новоположного ск лад ника у країнської словес ности” (Dončyk et al. 2014-, 2: 26).
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HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
Lati n are also a welcomed novelt y; the Polish and Latin tex ts are right fully rei n-
serted i nto Ukrai nian literat ure. We read that the elements of t he European Re-
nais sance and the “ful l development of the universal ba roque style in U krai ne”26
are illustrated in a series of chapters. It is evident that the editors lay stress on
the purported objectivity of their analysis, which, it is said, is free from Soviet
ideological strictures. us, it looks in a new way at the many aspects involved
in the development of Ukrain ian literatu re, rst and foremost at t he literary a nd
cultural relations with Russia. e new approach stated in this sort of ‘declara-
tion of intent’ was also made possible by a long ‘preparatory’ work of study and
publication of literary works of early modern Ukrainian literature. A long list
of such publications (both dedicated to single literary genres and anthologies),
divided into volumes of literary works published in the original language and
books of literary works originally wrien in Church Slavonic, old Ukrainian,
Polish or Latin, translated into modern Ukrainian is given (chronologically,
the earliest mentioned edition is a 1959 book edited by L. Machnovec’, Davnij
ukrajins’kyj humor i satyra). e list contains only work s by Ukrainia n scholars,
which is quite unders tandable since they a re the ones who did most of the edito-
ria l and publication work for t he edit ion of old text s. However, scrolli ng the index
of names at the end of the book, one is st ruck by the al most complete absence of
the names of Western Europea n scholars, who made a n important contr ibution
to Ukrainian literary scholarship of the early modern period.
e literature of the second half of the 16th and rst half of the 17th centu-
ry is characterized in the chapter Literaturnyj proces. e period is called one of
profound renewal and marked development in all cultural elds, including lit-
erature. In order to characterize this phenomenon, which the author denes as
commens urate with t he cultura l shis of t he European Ren aissance, she u ses the
den ition of “the rst nat ional Reviv al” (“перше нац іонал ьне Відр оджен ня”)
(Dončyk et al. 2014-, 2: 80)27. However, as the author hastens to add, they were
not so much Renaissance ideas that inuenced this development, as the ideas
of the Reformation. I ndeed, it is in this period that Ukrainian c ulture begins its
tran sformation from a closed culture into a ‘modern’, secula rized one. is pro-
cess is ree cted in the gradu al secula rization of literature, in the growing ‘multi-
functiona lity’ of the prosta mova and the decreasing use of Church-Slavonic (in
this the author sees the inuence of the Reformation), the gradual emergence
of the author’s personality, and nally in the development of the socia l function
of literary styles. Regarding Ukrainian society, the author refers to the opinion
of V. Ly tvynov28, who has identied four groups in late 16th and early 17th cen-
tury Ukrainian society: the rst were conservative orthodox; then came the
26 “повноцінний розвиток універса льного сти лю бароко в Україні” (Dončyk et al. 2014 -,
2: 28).
27 e adjective peršyj is used to distinguish this renewal from the one that took place in
Ukrainian cult ure at the turn of the 19th and 20th centur ies.
28 e quoted source is: V. Lytvynov, Ukrajina v pošukach svojeji identyčnosti. XVI-počatok
XV II stolija. Istoryko-losofs’ kyj narys, Ky iv 2008, p. 515.
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GIOVANNA SIEDINA
utraquists29, among which “both Renaissance-humanistic and Reformation
ideas were formed”30; the third group was in favor of the church union with
Rome; the four th group is de ned as “Renaissance-hu manistic” (“ренес ансно-
гуманістичне”), however its representatives are said to have almost all subse-
quently d issolved in the ‘Polish sea’. is expression, which the author probably
took from Lytvynov, since it is in quotation marks, is not further explained.
What does it mean to dissolve in the Polish sea? Does it refer to ethnic Ukrain-
ians (Ukrainian-Polish, Ukrainian-Belarusian, Ukrainian-Belarusian-Lithu-
anian-Polish), authors of the so-called porubižžja, who in one way or another
identied themselves as Ruthenians and wrote (also) in Latin and/or Polish?
e author does not specify, and the following exposition is rather organized
according to the dierent literary genres, starting with the dierent varieties of
prose. e author observes that while the laer remain more or less the same of
the previous period (epistles, tracts, sermons, saints’ lives, annals, pilgrimage
accounts) and preserve an established ideal-thematic religious discourse, their
content and genre for ms experience a radica l renewal under the inuence of the
new challenges of t he nacional ’ne vidrodžennja epoc h. Polemical prose is dened
as the most vital prose genre of the period for the lively interconfessional de-
bate that characterized it. About this the author quotes the Ukrainian scholars
D. Nalyvajko and V. Krekoten’; they state that this literature “echoing the ac-
tual Renaissance Humanism, ‘in its typology, in its functions and in its genre
composition is very close to the literature generated by the Western European
Reformation’”31. Unfortunately, in the subsequent synthetic but circumstan-
tial overview of Ukrainian polemical literature the author does not indicate in
which aspects and in which ways such literature echoed Renaissance Human-
ism. Here, as elsewhere, the lack of more in-depth studies on the reception of
Humanism and the Renaissance is felt. Until this gap is lled, it will be dicult
to have a clear picture of those elements which harken back to the Renaissance
and those components that pertain more specically to the new Baroque taste.
3.3 Polish language poetry and Latin-language poetry
Evidence of the discrepa ncy of approach can be fou nd in the chapters on Polish-
language poetry and Latin-language poetry respectively on pages 260-280 (by
R. Radyševs’kyj) and 281-295 (by M. Trofymuk). In the former, Polish-Latin
cultural bilingualism is set on the background of Ukrainian Baroque, which is
29 e utraqui sts (from the Lat in expr ession sub utraque specie, “under t wo kinds”) wer e a mod-
erate faction of the Hussites, who supported the laity’s right to receive communion of both
bread and w ine during the Eucharist.
30 “Були сформовані і ренесансно-гуманістичні, і реформац ійні і деї” (Dončyk et al. 2 014-,
2: 81).
31 “Перегу куючсь із власне ренесансним гу манізмом, ‘за своєю типологією, за своїми
фун кц іам и і за свої м жан ровим с кл адом ду же бли зька с аме до л ітера тур и, пород женої
західноєвропейською Реформацією’” (Dončyk et al. 2014-, 2: 82).
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HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
characterized, among other things, by the tendency to “to harmonize the na-
tional content of culture with linguistic means of expression”32, a phenomenon
which in most European countries, took place during the Renaissance. e au-
thor underlines that the Ukrainian Baroque took upon itself the functions of
the Renaissance, besides devoting particular aention to Medieval themes and
motifs, theocentrism, genre normativity, the spiritual element, and the union
of Christianity with antiquity. e author then mentions a series of issues gen-
erated by the Polish-Ukrainian coexistence, rst and foremost the encounter
of the two traditions of Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) Christian-
ity. However, the treatment of these issues is set only on the background of the
Baroque. For instance, it is said that it was the Sarmatian ideology, “on the ba-
sis of the baroque cult of respect for antiquity”33, that had the important func-
tion of spur ring the Uk rainian elite to search for their ancestors in Kyivan Rus’.
However, no mention is made of the role that the rediscovery of Classical
antiquity during the Renaissance may have had. e author does not elaborate
on the issue of multilingualism, noting only that the existence of two literary
lang uages (Latin and Polish) slowed down the de velopment of the ‘nationa l’ lan-
guage, and that the use of the Polish language by the cultural elite of the time
was then explained with the need to expand the circle of readers. It is not very
clear what the author has in mind when he states that multilingualism, i.e. an
author’s freedom to choose t he lang uage that best suited his gen re and thematic
needs, complicates the criteria of aribution of authors and texts to more than
one literature, Ukrainian, Polish, Belarusian. It is certainly true, however, that
the historical condition in which Ukrainian literature developed requires spe-
cial criteria to be adequately and correctly framed.
Further on the author analyses prose and poetic genres wrien in Polish: po-
lemica l poetry by Ipat ij Potij and Melet ij Smotryc’ kyj and v arious exa mples of epi-
cedia. In the laer the author underlines the baroque characteristics of the genre.
Subsequentl y, t he discourse sh is to the rev ival of Kyiv a nd the role of the Mohyla
College/Academy is highlighted in the formation of a new generation of men of
leers and representatives of the cultural elite. rough the Polish language, the
new writers could assimilate the best models of the Polish Rena issance and early-
Baroque culture, the author asserts. However, in the subsequent analysis of the
most interesting Polish language works, only the elements pertaining to the Ba-
roque are mentioned a nd they are al l analy zed against t he background of Ba roque
aesthetics. If the author’s claim is correct, the picture would be more complete if
the Rena issance roots of ideas, themes and mot ifs were high lighted. For ins tance,
when analyzing the love for the past of Ukraine and especially of Kyiv in Tomasz
Jewlewicz’s Labirynt, albo droga zawikłana and in other poetic and prose works,
one should bear i n mind that the red iscovery of one’s own past had its roots in the
32 “Узгод ити й н аціоп нал ьний зм іст кул ьту ри з мовни ми зас обами вира женн я” (Dončyk
et al. 2 014-, 2: 261).
33 “на ґрунті барокового культу пошани до с таровини” (Donč yk et al. 2014-, 2: 2 63).
160
GIOVANNA SIEDINA
Renaissance period. e same can be said about dierent poetic genres, such as
epicedia, which certainly harken back to their rediscovery by Humanism in the
Renaissance period. Also, the images of a reborn Kyiv, whose hills are likened to
mount Helicon and Parnassus and whose river Dnipro is said to recall the Cast-
alian springs of inspiration, so frequent in the poetry of this period, undoubtedly
have their roots in the migration of the muses topos of Renaissance poetry.
is sa id, it is certainly t rue that Ukrainia n literature of t his time span is un-
der the in uence of the Baroque, si nce its main tenets, love for contrast s, strik ing
contrad ictions, rened ornamentation, studied visua l and intellect ual complex-
ity and many other features of this cultural mode, were certainly congenial to
the 16th and 17th century Ukrainian elite’s frame of mind.
Other poetic works analyzed are devoted to the gure of the metropoli-
tan Petro Mohyla, whose role in the development of the Ukrainian Orthodox
Church and Ukrainian culture can hardly be overestimated34. Also, the insist-
ence on the impor tance of cult ure, which character izes var ious Polish-lang uage
literary works devoted to Petro Mohyla analyzed in the text, certainly has its
roots in the Humanistic movement. One cannot but recall the repudiation of
all Classical pagan authors and contemporary European scholarship, together
with the rhetorical devices and embellishments that they used, by the Athos
monk Ivan Vyšens’ kyj (ca. 1550-aer 1621) of just a few decades earlier. A clear
break with Vyšens’kyj’s aitude can be seen in two works of religious content,
the Paterikon (1635) edited by Silvestr Kosov at the request of Petro Mohyla,
and Tερατουργ ημα, lubo cuda… (1638) by Afan asij Kal ’nofojs’ kyj, in w hich were
gathered legends and accounts related to the Monastery of the Kyivan Caves
and the miracles that happened there. Its goal was to contribute to the rein-
forcement of the Kyivan Church and its supporters, past and present. As is un-
derlined by the author, in Tερατουρ γ ημ α , lubo cuda… particular aention was
devoted to the panegyric glorication of learning, which was in line with the
concept shared by the circle of Petro Mohyla’s supporters on the usefulness of
education and the light of science. Kal’nofojs’kyj goes so far as to arm that the
eternal gates of glory will be opened to the people who devoted themselves to
these noble deeds. Although the praise of learning and science certainly hark-
ens back to the Renaissance, for its fascination with medieval mysticism and
its exquisite and aphoristic writing, the author stresses this work’s connection
with the Baroque style.
Further on, in the last four pages of his essay, the author analyzes Polish-
language emblematic poems wrien to praise the local nobility which contin-
ue to develop the traditions of Baroque panegyric poetry of the Kyivan circle.
ey are all linked to the Mohyla Collegium, which proves the centrality of
34 Some of these works are: the collection of panegyric verses Mnemosyne sławy (1633), whose
author w as probably Olek sandr Tyškev yč, the poe tic and prose Pol ish-Lati n paneg yric “Sa ncti
Petri Metropolitae Kijoviensis thaumaturgi Rossiae… Petrus Mohila” (1645) by Teodosij
Bajevs’ ky j, and Żal ponowiony by Josy p Kali mon, a mourn ing respon se to the deat h of Mohyla.
161
HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
this institution for the formation of the Ukrainian cultural elite. Of particular
interest is an anonymous work, probably wrien by students of the college un-
der the supervision of their teachers, addressed to Jeremija Vyšnevec’kyj with
the aim to praise the noble Korybut-Vyšnevec’kyj family. It is a dramatized
poem in four acts, divided into scenes, probably recited by students of the col-
lege, and it reects the characteristic features of Kyivan Baroque versication
of the mid-17th century. e author calls aention to the year of its composi-
tion, 1648, and underl ines that at that t ime Bohdan Chmel ’nyc’ kyj had a lready
engaged in a few bales against the Polish Crow n. In the poem, however, these
events are not reected upon: learned poetry remains removed from current
events. If this is true, it is to be noted, as does the author, that Petro Mohyla
and the Kyivan elite, also aer his death, did not share the pro-Russian orien-
tation of Ukrainian Cossacks. On the contrary, they considered Cossack in-
surrections as a rebellion that troubled the peaceful development of the state.
Indeed, the prince Jeremija Vyšnevec’kyj in the Cossack wars passed over to
the Polish-Catholic camp and thus against Ukraine. e author concludes by
stating that the literary activity of the Kyiv-Mohyla college in the rst half of
the 16th century oers bright poetic examples of an original Kyivan school of
emblematic-panegy ric Baroque versi cation, strictly t ied to the European and
particularly Polish Baroque.
Finally, the chapter on Latin-language poetry, on pages 281 to 295. e au-
thor starts out by say ing that from t he 14th through 16th centuries about 60 au-
thors of U krain ian origin created Ren aissance literature i n Central and Ea stern
Europe. He bases his statement on the list found in Z. Florczak’s work Udział
regionów w ksztaltowaniu siȩ polskiego piśmiennictwa XVI wieku, Warszawa,
Wrocław, Kra ków 1967, alt hough he adds that the sc holar uses the words “ Ziemie
Rusk ie Rzecz ypospolitej ” without di erentiating W hite, Red a nd Black Rus’. In
this chapter he analyzes the work of three poets: Sebast’jan Fabian Klenovyč,
Symon Pekalid, and Ivan Dombrov’skyj. He does not stress the distinction, as
Ševču k does (see above), bet ween Ruthenian wr iters who were Catholic , on one
side, and represent atives of Polish-U krain ian poetry. Moreover, if K lenovyč was
certainly Catholic, from the biographical information we have about him, we
cannot arm that he was Ruthenian.
Indeed, f rom the availa ble biographic al inform ation, we know that Seba st’ja n
Fabian K lenovyč (1545-1602) was born in t he region of Poznan to Polish pa rents
and lived most of his adult life in Lublin, where he held various administrative
positions. His link with Ukraine consists of his stay in L’viv from about 1570 to
about 1573 and especially of his long and fascinating poem Roksolania, the rst
printed Neo-Latin poem about Ukraine, as the author of the essay remarks. In
the author’s opinion, it is exactly for this poem that Klenovyč’s work is consid-
ered part of Ukrainian literature.
e poem is qu ite accu rately illust rated. e author of the essay, quoting My-
chajlo Bilyk’s previous study of the text, states that Roksolania had no analogue
in Classical antiquity. He correctly lists the quotations from Classical authors,
although the most probable antecedent for Klenovyč’s descriptions of forests
162
GIOVANNA SIEDINA
and pasture lands are Virgil’s Georgics and Eclogues, also called Bucolics, which
were quite popular during the Renaissance. However, the author, again citing
Bilyk, notes that in Roksolania “so vividly reected the creative individuality
of the poet, which goes beyond the Renaissance imitation”35. is statement,
indeed, betrays quite a narrow comprehension of Renaissance poets as slavish
imitators of Classical antiquities, without their own individuality.
e term R enaissance i s also used to de ne the way the poem ‘sings’ U kraine,
that is, according to the author, in a form charac teristic of a Ren aissance literar y
work. However, he does not specify of which characteristics he is speaking, or
dene what characterizes a Renaissance literary work in a more general sense
and how Roksolania exemplies this. It would also have been proper to investi-
gate the contempora ry European antecedents of Roksolania. One would expect
a bibliography on these earlier works and other Neo-Latin literature produced
by Ukrainians or about Ukraine.
Trofymuk also discusses Symon Pekalid, an interesting Neo-Latin Polish
poet who, for reasons we do not know, became very close to the prince Kost-
jantyn Ostroz’kyj. So close that in the record of Cracow University graduates,
the note “ruthenus factus” (“he became a Rusyn”) appears next to his name. He
became so Rusyn, in fact, that at the beginning of the 1590s he took part in the
campaign against the lower Cossacks. A witness to this, as well as to his close-
ness to prince Kostjantyn Ostroz’kyj and to the Ostroh Academy founded by
him, is Pekal id’s poem De bello Ostrogi ano ad Piantcos cum Nizoviis libri qua uor
(Cracow 1600). e author provides a description of each of the books, under-
lining that Pekalid’s point of view is that of the noble elite, and thus he provides
an ideal ized image of the princely clan and their manifold deeds for the defense
and the cultu ral development of their la nd. e poem is quite interesting also as
a histor ical source, in that, a mong others thi ngs, it provides an acc urate descrip -
tion of the cit y of Ostroh, of its trili ngual lyceu m, and of the genealogical tree of
the Ostroz’kyj family, starting from the Rus patriarcha up to his own time. e
victorious deeds on the baleeld of the latest descendants of the Ostroh fam-
ily are described as well. In the second book, Pekalid describes the Zaporoz’ka
Sič, and f rom the note on the margi n (“Insula in Boristhene, ubi Nisov ii delites-
cunt”) (“an island on the Boristhenes, where the Nisovii lurk ”) one understands
the position of the author. e description of the prince’s army is also worthy of
mention, which was composed of dierent ethnic groups, among which Tatars
seled i n Ostroh; their cu stoms, manner s and armament a re described in det ail.
Only book s 3 and 4 illust rate the militar y events hinted at in t he title, i.e. the
clash of t he Ostroz’kyj army wit h twenty thousand lower Cossac ks. In the third
book the preparation of the bale in the Cossacks’ camp is described as well as
the manifold tactic they plan to use to disorientate the enemy; the description
of the bale near P’ jatka is the culminating point. As to the fourth book, it con-
35 “Наст ільки яс краво відбил ася творча і ндив ідуак льніст ь поета, що пере ходит ь рамк и
ренесансного нас лідування” (Dončyk et al. 2014-, 2: 286).
163
HUMANISM AND THE RENAISSANCE IN RECENT HISTORIES OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE
tains the description of the preparation for the new bale as well as the speech
of prince Janusz. e preparation is interrupted by the arrival of the Cossacks’
envoys who ask prince Kostjantyn for a truce, and indeed the new bale will
never take place, since, as the author of the essay states, Kosy ns’ky j appears and
in a short repentant spee ch expresses h is desire for reconci liation and obedience.
Trofymuk observes that the whole poem is built on the paraphrasis of Vir-
gil’s Aeneid, star ting from the incipit, and that three hundred verses out of 1400
are borrowed from various works by Virgil, especially his famous epic poem.
He also notes that along with various reminiscences from Latin poets, such as
Ovid, Statius, Lucanus, Horace, and Catullus, the poem contains allusions to
Biblical motifs taken from the books of Jeremiah, Isiah, Deuteronomy and the
Psalms. Except for the mentioned sources of inspiration, no other mention is
made of the possible Humanistic or Renaissance sources of this long and origi-
nal poem . Indeed, it is beyond doubt that Pekal id’s poem is al so a fruit of the Re-
naissance, in m any respects. O n one side, it reect s the Renaiss ance approach to
the heroicum carmen – designed to surpass the celebration of res gestae reg umque
ducumque et tristia bella, as Horace dened the topic of the heroic poem. is
approach goes ha nd in hand w ith the loose bounda ry between epic and encomi-
astic poetry that has its roots in t he Renaissa nce didactic t heory of a rt36. Fina lly,
the celebration of prince Janusz Ostroz’ kyj and of his cla n, of their good admin-
istration of the subject territory, as well as of their caring for the development
of culture and science certainly reect the humanistic “transformation of wis-
dom from contemplation to action, from a body of knowledge to a collection of
ethical precepts, from a virtue of the intellect to a perfection of the will”37. Not
long ago, this poem was the object of a scholarly article by Natalia Jakovenko,
but her scholarly i nsights into t his rst Neo-L atin poem, tied to Volyn’ for its ap-
pearance and context, do not seem to be reected in this analysis of the poem.
4. Conclusions
e analysis of the most relevant aspects of how two recent histories of Ukrain-
ian l iteratu re approach the inuence of Human ism and the Rena issance in early-
modern Ukrainian literature allows me to draw some preliminary conclusions.
Notw ithstandi ng the dierences in thei r conception, in the t ype of ana lysis, and
notw ithst anding the d ierences between their tastes and sensitiv ity in thei r ap-
proach to the st udy of literature, the authors of the two hi stories have the shared
goal of reevaluating the material outside of the ideological strictures of the So-
viet period. However, some aspects touched upon in their analyses still need to
be examined thoroughly and dispassionately. Among them the supranational
chara cter of Humani sm and the Renai ssance and of thei r reception, and the mu l-
tiple identity of many men of leers in Ukraine in the examined period. At the
36 See Ha rdison 1962: 43- 67 and 71-72.
37 R ice 1958: 149.
164
GIOVANNA SIEDINA
same time the emphasis on the secular character of the ‘new’ literature should
be properly considered. In the realit y of the texts of the time, rel igion continues
to be an integral part of mental, intellectual, political and cultural discourse.
Anot her advantage which has cha racterized the work of the t wo authors con-
sidered here has been the publicat ion of many texts of early-modern Uk rainian
literature that had formerly been only in manuscript form. Many previously
unpublished texts appeared in print in the last decades of the 20th centur y and
in the rst years of the 21st century. is is still an ongoing process and it will
probably last for a few more decades to come. Many manuscripts are still scat-
tered in l ibraries and arc hives or in private collections across Uk raine, Bela rus’
and Russia. However, a drawback that has oen characterized the publication
of these texts is the poor quality of the editions: whether they were wrien in
Latin, in Polish, in Old-Ukrainian or in Church Slavonic, they have almost al-
ways been translated into modern Ukrainian. is is not in itself a aw, but
the lack of the original text next to its translation into modern Ukrainian is
an inconvenience that should be avoided in future editions, since it does not
allow one to appreciate the language in which the texts were wrien, and the
language is an integral part of the work, which cannot and should not be sepa-
rated from the content it carries. Moreover, the lack of the original language
does not allow one to reconstruct the poetics of reminiscences, which is para-
mount to the literature of this epoch.
Hopefully, the reconstruction, as much as possible, of the full picture of
the literary texts produced in Ukraine from the 15th to the 18th centur y will
facilitate the analysis of their features in and of themselves, including the
inuence of Humanism and the Renaissance on their composition. Rather
than merely viewing their language, metrics and various modes of expres-
sion as a preparatory way for subsequent currents, such as the Baroque, we
might appreciate this period’s literary production on its own terms and for
its own characteristics.
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Abstract
In this article, the author analyzes how the broad theme of the reception of Human-
ism and Renaissance is treated in two important histories of Ukrainian literature, respec-
tively Muza Roksolans’ka. Ukrajins’ka literatura XVI-XVIII stolit’ by Valerij Ševčuk (Kyiv,
“Lybid’”, 2004-2005), in two volumes, and Istorija ukrajins’koji literatury in t welve volumes
(2014-) published by the publishing house of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Nau-
kova Dumka. e disappearance of Soviet ideological constraints has brought about the
emergence of various aspects of this theme: the multilingualism (especially as regards lit-
erature wrien in Latin), the multiple identity of writers of the so-called Pohranyččja, the
literature wrien in Latin, are just a few. However, some aspects still need to be addressed:
among then the supranational approach should be adequately considered when dealing
with the spread of Humanism-Renaissance.
Keywords: Reception of Humanism-Renaissance; Early-modern Ukrainian litera-
ture; Neo-Latin literature, multilingualism; multiple identity.
