"CHYHYRYN'S DISCOURSE" OF SHEVCHENKO'S POEMS

I n t r o d u c t i o n . The significant role of Chyhyryn in Ukrainian history is due to the fact that the period of the city's functioning as the capital – 1648–1676 – was also the time of the Ukrainian Hetmanate state. In view of this, Shevchenko's "Chyhyryn" discourse acquires significant importance within the limits of his historiosophy. Not only the state-scale matters are attributed Chyhyryn, but also the fact that there was made the decision to accept Moscow's patronage. That is why it is important to find out Shevchenko's view on this issue. The purpose of the article is to analyze Shevchenko's poems concerned with the image of Chyhyryn and its fate; to find out the related meanings that are significant for the poet; to determine the role of the image-symbol of Chyhyryn in Shevchenko's discourse. M e t h o d s . Hermeneutic, comparative methods, analysis and synthesis are used. R e s u l t s . It was found that Chygyryn occupied an important place in Shevchenko's picture of the world. His poems referring to the image of the Ukrainian hetman's capital were analyzed. Within the scope of Shevchenko's "Chygyryn" discourse, the poem – "Chyhyryn, O Chyhyryn..." and the painting – "Gifts in Chyhyryn in 1649" (both 1844) are in our opinion the key ones. This according to the meaning that the author himself gave to these works of art. According to T. Shevchenko, Chyhyryn is associated with the statehood idea and the heroic liberation struggle. The poet's "sanctification" of Chyhyryn (recognition of it as a holy place) naturally refers to his corresponding perception of Chyhyryn's era of Ukrainian history, marked by fredoom and statehood, until 1676. C o n c l u s i o n s . In Shevchenko's poems, starting with "Haydamaky" and ending with the poems of 1848, we faced the two images of Chyhyryn: the hetman's ones, in the time of its glory, statehood role, and the one enslaved by the Muscovites, and then by the Russian Empire, which seem to stand in for each other. Within the scope of the "Chyhyryn" discourse in Shevchenko's poems, in view of the enslaved situation of Ukraine, the first noticeable thing is the decline of Cossack glory, the state, national self-awareness and national memory ("Haydamaky", "Chyhyryn, O Chyhyryn...", "A black cloud has set in..."), bifurcation of the national organism (two Ivans - "Big Cellar", Samoilovych – Doroshenko – "A black cloud has set in..."). It should also be noted that even when the poet portrays Chyhyryn in an anti-Polish paradigm, his works are filled with distinctly anti-Moscow content, since both the reminder of Chyhyryn's former greatness and the depiction of the decayed modern state of the once glorious Cossack capital speak of the destructive Moscow's contribution.