Голосні струни Лесі Українки й Меланхолійний вальс Ольги Кобилянської: художньо-типологічні паралелі
Lesya Ukrainka’s Голосні струни and Olha Kobylianska’s Valce melancolique: artistic and typological parallels

Summary/Abstract: One can identify at least a few points at which the artistic careers and personal lives of Lesya Ukrainka (1871-1913) and Olha Kobylianska (1863-1942) had crossed their paths. Both women are great figures of Ukrainian literature. They both lived and worked in the same time, although 8 years older Olga outlived Lesya by nearly 28 years. They shared the literary space, that is the early Ukrainian modernism, and the everyday environment, both living in the Chernivtsi district. The writers were linked by a special spiritual bond which was reflected in their epistolary oeuvre and their work in general. In two works of theirs in particular, that is in Lesya Ukrainka’s essay Голосні струни and Olha Kobylianska’s novelette Valce melancolique one can trace artistic and typological parallels stemming from the similarities between their personal lives and work. These are: timewise similarity, similarity within the genre, autobiographism of both texts and their intellectualism. In both works a conflict between the reality and Art is present, interpreted as a variant of the conflict between an artist and the society, as well as the feature of broadly understood ‘musicality’. Moreover, in both texts the motifs of longing/ melancholy and silence/ quietness, as well as the then popular motif of beauty/ ugliness are intertwined.

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