„Mazepa” Juliusza Słowackiego jako dramat mimetycznego pragnienia
Juliusz Słowacki’s “Mazeppa” as a Drama of Mimetic Desire

Summary/Abstract: In its character, the paper reveals an interpretation of Juliusz Słowacki’s drama, and as its theme it develops the scenes of future Ukrainian hetman’s life prior to the forced, back to front, unusual Mazeppa’s nude bareback riding achievement fixed in his legend and in Western art. The author points at the elements of imitation, reflections and echo in the space construction, the action, and the characters’ behavior to state that it is a mimetic desire (René Girard’s literary criticism category) that directs the lifes of the protagonists. The analysis of the mimetic relations between the characters brings out Mazeppa’s double Ukrainian-Polish identity, and Słowacki’s understanding of the connections between the aforementioned countries set in the drama. Moreover, the article questions the title protagonist’s idealizing interpretations: the author is more likely to link him rather with the heroes of ethnic and cultural borderlands of the pre-partition Polish Republic and Lithuania than with a set of morally developing figures from Słowacki’s mystical period.

• Details
• Contents