Information on the thesis

In his novel “Lelum and Polelum” the author with his inherent profundity depicted
diverse personalities of different social strata of Halychyna in the second half of 19th –
beginning of 20^th century.
The first chapter “The novel of Ivan Franko «Lelum i Poplelum» in the context of
the Ukrainian literature development” describes how the novel was written. Taking into
account the fact that Ivan Franko wrote the novel to participate in the competition held
by the weekly paper “Kurjer Warszawski” and the target audience primarily was the
Polish readers, the novel was written in Polish. Unfortunately, the novel was not
properly evaluated. Thus, Franko could not publish it.
The second chapter “The complicated novel «Lelum i Polelum»: from romanticism
to modernism” analyses the text in the context of literature process of the end of 19th –
beginning of 20th century. The generally realistic novel includes elements from
different literary movements. The image of Regina Kyselevska was created on the basis
on the classic romantic method of contrast. The psychologization of creative work,
introspection methods, shift of attention from external plot to internal, illustration of
hero’s mental collisions, inner monologues – these are the features inherent to the
modernism style of writing. Having used the esthetics of naturalism, Franko managed to
more brightly depict the moments difficult for perception. Apart from that, the
naturalism methods helped to emphasize, complete the image of Ernest Kyselevskyi.
The novel also includes some principles of impressionism. The impressionism methods
best reproduced the portrayal of the world in such way as “it seemed to be in the process
of perception”.
The thirds chapter “The diversity of characters in the novel «Lelum i Polelum»:
artistic and ideological dimensions” analyses all literary characters of the novel.
Vladyslav and Hnat Kalynovych are the main fighters supporting the idea of restoreing
justice. The novel is intertextual which gives reasons to draw a parallel between these
characters and characters from Juliusz Słowacki’s drama “Lilla Weneda”. The image of
Regina Kyselevska is portrayed quite laconically in the novel. The writer endowed her
with the features of fatal woman, as defined by literary scholars, and her name distinctly
correlates with the name of I. Franko’s beloved one – Cylina Zygmuntowska. The two
characters who had a destructive influence on Vladyslav were Ernest, Regina’s brother,
who functioned as a parasite and aunt Drelikhova. Franko ridiculed the honorable noble
people surrounding Drelikhova – counts Adolf, Alfons and Hiatsynt. In addition to
influential and powerful officials, the author described the numb Halychyna
intelligentsia. These descriptions reproduce the typical behavior of the officials at the
end of 20th century. The influence of the secondary characters is very important for the
development of events in the novel. The Kalynovych brothers could have succeeded in
what they did but the author’s idea was to show how the perfidious reality puts pressure
on the initiators of social change.
Key words: Ivan Franko’s “Polish period”, interethnic relations, literary character,
portrait detail, contrast, prototype, fatal love, dualism, turncoatism, psychological
profile, social contrast.