The Insurgent Struggle Against the Soviet Occupiers in Vasyl Herasymiuk’s Poetry

Vasyl Herasymiuk, one of the most prominent contemporary Ukrainian poets, presents the struggle of the insurgents against the Soviet occupiers in the Carpathians in his literary works as an opposition of “own” and “other.” The invasion of the occupier destroys the authentic Carpathian cultural continuum and the insurgent underground resistance becomes a symbol of the human struggle for dignity and the preservation of own identity. The article analyzes the specific model of history presented in Vasyl Herasymiuk’s poetry. The connection between the insurgency and the poet’s biography and the history of his family is demonstrated. The article also traces and analyzes the contamination of the images of UPA insurgents and opryshky, the transformation in the hierarchical verticality of space, and the development of the struggle, presented via the opposition of “own” – “other,” from a myth-ritual point of view.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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