Romantic discourse of "Haidamaki" poem by T. Shevchenko

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Romantic discourse of «Haidamaki» poem by T. Shevchenko

The poem «Haidamaki» is investigated as a lyric-epic poem, which is built on principles of romantic discourse. There is explored the interconnection with the genre of heroic epic, the pecidiarity of the narrative distance between the storyteller and represented events. The romantic means of composition and principles of design of characters are traced in the context of lyric manner of the story narration.

Keywords: lyric-epic poem, epopee, discourse, storyteller, Byronic poem.

Genre nature of the poem «Haidamaki» does not have a single meaning. It corresponds to the epopee genre because of the character of the questions touched; however, it significantly differs from the classic standard of heroic epopee in the way of narrative implementation and suzet-compositional structure. An epic poem did not spread in Ukrainian literature and, moreover, in a time of writing of «Haidamaki» this

genre variety of epos stepped back to the background. Style features of «Eneyida» by Kotlyarevsky are indicative in this regard; it, on one hand, was a travesty of a classic heroic epopee, and on the other - it eventually acquired the high sounding in the closing chapters and that witnessed the necessity of the artistic mastering of category of epic. A romantic poem dominated already in European literatures in the time of creation of «Haidamaki». Poetic story (powiesc poetycka), to which combinations of the epic and lyric beginnings are inherent, was blooming in Polish literature in 1825 - 1830. These peculiarities were expressed in moods, in attitude towards represented, in authorial addresses to the reader, pulling the hero, which is close to the poet, to foreground of a narrative, disruption of composition, even in fragmentary way of storytelling and elements of mystery in a plot. Also authors underlined the presence of historical and national coloring («Lithuanian story», «Ukrainian story») [8, P. 5]. An example of such variety of poem is Seweryn Goszczynski's «Zamek kaniowski», which is similar in motifs with «Haidamaki». Russian literature also mastered such genre model through «Byronic» poem, in particular in form of «eastern» poems by Alexander Pushkin.

One of main genre features of epopee is depiction of events of great social- historic value. Therefore, putting an object of depiction in the first place D. Chalyi defined genre of «Haidamaki» as a romantic epic [10, p.34]. Classical heroic epopee had a linear presentation of events, there was unfold a consistent causal relationship from the beginning to the end of the story being told. In this case narrator drew attention to the detailed description of the external objective circumstances and conflict advance. The main role in the discourse was assigned to the characters and subjective expression of lyrical narrator was reduced to a minimum. As you can see, the nature of the history of «Haydamaki» is far removed from the classical standards of the heroic genre. This contrast to the epic genre and its structure drew attention of academics. M. Hnatyuk argued that at its core «Haidamaki» by T. Shevchenko is a lyric-epic romantic poem of heroic content [2, p.48]. This view is shared by modern scholars, considering «Haidamaki» a national epic modified with lyrical and romantic intentions [4, s. 159].

«Haidamaki» is based on the new at the time of composition principles of romantic poem with its fragmentariness when the author freely behaving with plot detail reflects only the most dramatic «vertex» episodes. Compositional correspondence of T. Shevchenko's poem was noticed by M. Hnatyuk: «Some traditions of «Byronic poem» with its free composition is felt in T. Shevchenko's «Haidamaki» [3, p. 32]. Critics perceived such compositional organization of the material ambiguously. «Eastern» poems reception by A. Pushkin, which supporters of Romantic movement greeted favourably and followers of traditional forms were sceptical to plot composition of «Byronic» poems, could serve as an example. «All reviewers dealing with the 20 years of the nineteenth century stopped at the «fragmentation» of Pushkin's poems, the structure of which they opposed to the usual coherence and completeness of the heroic epic of the old style", -- said V. Zhyrmunskyi [5, p. 69 The latest were amazed with incompleteness, absence of clear solutions (compare with the remark by O. Ohonovskyy who prefers to learn more about the future Yarema); it is meant that the action in the scene is interrupted and does not have an end.

Ivan Franko also critically treated the composition plan of the poem. Specifying the evolution of aesthetic requirements for general construction of the work of art, the critic pointed out that, at present, the main requirement for unity of action remains. The author has to keep the reader's attention around a central theme. In his view, T. Shevchenko failed to comply with this principle in "Haidamaki". At the beginning the protagonist seems to the reader to be Yarema, but in the subsequent story parts his role drifts to the background. As I. Franko states hereafter Zaliznyak and Gonta come to the foreground, which are ultimately connected to the climax: "When the supreme point of the poem should be considered the brightest depicted image of Uman massacre, we have to remember that this image of so named anticipated poem fits only superficially -- that there the same people act who did this before -- or even at the beginning of the poem, which so vividly touches our sympathy and does not fit it" [9, p.53]. If we assume that the main storyline is associated with the Ukrainian people, and the "main action -- revenge on the enemy-oppressor", then, according to critics, it is unnecessary to exercise the author excessive attention at the story beginning to Yarema and Oksana; the people as protagonist of the poem is not manifested [9, p.53]. haidamaki romantic heroic discourse

This I. Franko's reception, in our opinion, is dimensioned with the fact that he limits the work by T. Shevchenko with the requirements of epic. These introductory remarks about the historicity / non historicity of "Haidamaki" poem suggest above mentioned reading expectations. Therefore branched storyline and new compositional techniques cause its resistance. T. Shevchenko took the principle of compositional vertex from romantic poem when the story is subjected to dramatized episodes, which are outlined as: Churchwarden killing by Confederates, "sanctification" of knives, Yarema's revenge, rebels' "feast" and Gonta's his children execution [3, p.73]. Thus the author can arbitrarily (compared with an epic story) handle material that also shows Yarema's participation sketched with only a few strokes in the uprising. Thus when modelling Yarema's image the author uses romantic techniques. As a romantic hero, he is disappointed in life, although the reasons for this mental confusion, unlike of Western Romanticists, T. Shevchenko clearly outlines. It powerless national situation, the lack of well-being, and hence the ghostly chance to have a family. Yarema's image is portrayed in the mainstream of romantic antithesis: depiction of the innkeeper Leiba exploitation is changed with lyrical reflections of the hero on his own destiny. The inner world of a person is opposed to inhumane external environment that emphasizes the contrasting descriptions of Leiba's family life. Romantic concept of the hero can be traced in subsequent episodes. Section "Tytarivna" starts with typical romantic picture: «Ярема співає, / Виглядає; а Оксани / Немає, немає. / Зорі сяють; серед неба / Горить білолиций; / Верба слуха соловейка, / Дивиться в криницю; / На калині. Над водою, / Так і виливає, / Неначе зна, що дівчину / Козак виглядає» [11, р. 142] ["Yarema sadly sang this song / While strolling by the grove; / He waited for Oksana long -- / Until he gave up hope. / The stars came out; a silver ball, / The moon shove in the sky; / The willow gazed into the well / And listened as nearby / A nightingale gave all he had / In heart-entrancing trill, / As though he knew the Cossak lad / was waiting for his girl"]. These lyrical preludes are typical for romantic "Byronic" poem; they usually depict a "picture of evening or night with traditional recurrent motifs - the last rays of the sun, the moon and the stars that shine in heaven, nightingale song, remote streams murmur or rippling river waves "[5, p.81]. For example, such a picture of the night we meet at Byron in "Lara" and "The Siege of Corinth" in A. Pushkin's "Poltava".

They function as a sort of decoration and are related with hero's date motive or "night visiting" ("Siege of Corinth"), which could be observed in T. Shevchenko's Yarema and Oksana meeting. So is defined romantic storyline -- the story of two lovers who fall into the abyss of historical events. The second part of composition are landscape paintings being a dramatic overture to the next development steps. The beginning in "Holiday in Chigirin" in which the narrator's current lyrical digressions are present along with descriptive passages is an example: "Із-за лісу, з-за туману / Місяць випливає, / Червоніє, круглолиций, / Горить, а не сяє, / <...> У темному гаї, в зеленій діброві, / На припоні коні отаву скубуть; / Осідлані коні, вороні готові. / Куди-то поїдуть? Кого повезуть" [11, с.148]. ["Out of behind the forest, the fog / the month is coming / red, chubby, / is lifting, not shining, /<...> In dark woods, amidst the green oaks, / tethered horses are cropping; / Saddled horses, ready. / Where do they go? Whom are going to take"]. As in "Byronic" poem they prepare the reader to accept the next rapid developments; they convey the exotic flavour of the circumstances such as the depiction of the pirate camp in "The Corsair" and the Turkish army before besiegement in "Siege of Corinth" by Byron. However, these descriptive pictures were in epic poem, but there they are marked with thoroughness and presence of heroic pathos (which shows Ivan Kotlyarevsky's "Eneida" that parodies this compositional device).

The epilogue in "Haidamaki" makes it related to romantic narrative. As in a romantic poem the story development abruptly ends after Gonta has buried his sons. Reader only guesses about the future fate of the characters, however, in T. Shevchenko's work he gets scant information about the death of the leaders of the uprising, but in the very epilogue. We see neither further course of the uprising nor the depiction of the defeat in the book instead epilogue is the narrator's digression and there are only some details about the fate of the characters. There is interpreted the historical significance of the Haidamaki's uprising, but along with that there are used techniques characteristic to romantic narrative poems. The scene with Yarama at Gonta's grave is characteristic: "Один тілько мій Ярема / На кий похилився, / Стояв довго. «Спочинь, батьку, / на чужому полі, / Бо на своїм нема місця, / Нема місця волі..." [11, с.189]. ["Yarema, leaning on his staff, / Long stood beside the grave, / "Rest, father, in this foreign place, / For in our native land / No longer is there any space, / Nor freedom to be had.... "] It resonates with similar motifs that occurred in European Romanticism. Pictures of desolated places, ruins, grave -- this is the topos portrayed by romantics. G. Bayron portrayed heroine's grave in "The Bride of Abydos", the fountain erected in memory of the heroine is in this role in Pushkin's "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray". Even Yarema's pose, who "leaning on his stsff' resembles characters designed by romantic poets. This is Byron's Corsair who conceived leaned on the sword, it is, Selim, who bowed his head in his hands and is looking at the sea's horizon. Epilogue enables the lyric author to submit the result of depicted events and to express the summary evaluation. This is characteristic to "eastern" poems by A. Pushkin, the same semantics is used by T. Shevchenko. Yarema himself in the epilogue is only outlined; the inner world is shown through outward signs. The author is not following the precursors, which were representing a picture of the inner world of the hero with typical romantic motifs of sadness and disappointment. Instead, the lyrical author's meditation on the past comes to the foreground in the narrative of "Haidamaki" poem. It should be noted that the interpretation of unusual past, which is opposed to grey modernity, is found in Byron, particularly in the depiction of the image of Greece. Such motif is unfixed in the artistic structure of a romantic poem; it can occur both at the beginning and in the epilogue. In T. Shevchenko we see that the final argument resonates with philosophical meditation of the beginning of the poem. T. Shevchenko's epilogue echoes with the help of the presence of so-called biographical element when the narrator speaks of himself, recalls similar events from his own life. These biographical moments appeared in Byron, usually in the middle of the poem. In Pushkin's "eastern" poems, including the "The Fountain of Bakhchisaray", biographical information is at the end of the work. Two authors have in common the excursions that go beyond the individual life of the authors-narrators and are related to the issues of national life.

As it is known, lyric writer clearly expresses his emotional involvement in the romantic discourse, he empathizes with his characters, expresses evaluative judgements, appeals to his characters, the reader, i.e. takes the characteristics of direct, explicit narrator. The narrator prepared the reader to perceive future events already in Byron's works. His lyrical digressions formed the reader's emotional background that prepared to understand these dramatic turns in the fate of the characters. Thus, T. Shevchenko's narrator empathizes and sympathizes with the fate of orphan Yarema, expresses sorrow for the past of hetman's capital at the beginning of the section "Holiday in Chigirin", thus indicating that the uprising is the cause of the lack of Ukrainian state, which would protect the interests of the Ukrainian people. The explicit narrator often addresses the reader focusing on the didactive role of the story: "Слухайте ж, щоб дітям потім розказати, / Щоб і діти знали, внукам розказали, / Як козаки шляхту тяжко покарали / За те, що не вміла в добрі панувать" [11, с. 158]. ["Now listen closely, later to retale / It to your children, their to theirs, so they / Should know how Cossacs made the gentry pay / For their misrule, when Polish lords held sway."] There are voiced the motifs of punishment, revenge and at the same time it forms the reader's perception of the story as a legendary one that was passed from generation to generation. This compositional device played an important role, because the episodes of the artistic structure of romantic poems were not associated clearly with cause-and-effect relationships. Instead episodes are linked together not with a pragmatic and logical sequence of connections but general emotional tone [5, p.61]. Such emotional tone is set with the landscape pictures throughout the text, such as multiple images of the moon, which resonate with reference to the forces of nature, are characteristic to the heroic epic: «Місяцю мій ясний! З високого неба / Сховайся за гору, бо світу не треба; / Страшно тобі буде, хоч ти й бачив Рось, /1 Альту, і Сену, і там розлилось, / Не знать за що крові широкеє море» [11, с.159]. ["Oh bright-shining moon! Climb down from the sky / And hide behind the hills, don't give us your light; / For you'll be appalled, although you have seen / At Alta and Ros, and also the Seine, / Whole oceans of blood, spilled no one knows why."] These narrator's considerations allow to trace not only the attempts of emotional impact on the reader, but also historiosophical considerations that extend the philosophical, moral and ethical and proper historical context. As we can see the narrator reflects on the nature of human evil that lasts forever in cosmic cycle. It encompasses the events from Kievan Rus and these are not just

battles, but events of national importance; it also includes those related to the individual human being. This allusion testifies the murder of Boris on the Alta River and the subsequent struggle for the throne between Sviatopolk the Accursed and Yaroslav the Wise, which ended with the battle on the Alta River. Similarly, the fate of T. Shevchenko's romantic hero Yarema is related to the events of historic proportions. As you can see, T. Shevchenko's narrator is not so much concerned about the disclosure of details of the fight, but forms reader's reception of the Haidamaki's uprising as of significant historical phenomenon.

In this context, let's have a look at I. Franco's arguments who pointed to the lack of straight compositional core of the poem: "Gonta's children murder was not prepared for the reader felt no anxiety, no hope, except common, painful feeling that there would be a great massacre" [9, p.54]. Actually critic points out that uniting factor is the aforementioned emotional tone, however, as already stated, in terms of romantic discourse, this is not a disadvantage if you use "vertex" compositional principle. In such artistic structure the important role is reserved to the lyrical narrator who intervenes in the story. Heterodiegetic narrator united free composition, he justified its shape and therefore teller acted as an important compositional device [7, p. 52]. Undoubtedly, this function performs the narrator in "Haidamaki". There are at his disposal lyrical descriptions that prepare the reader expectations, evaluative judgements about the actors, explanations of their actions, openings of the inner world of the characters and their own lyrical digressions, which may contain not only moralistic conclusions, but also figure out the cause-effect connections guiding the reader from one episode to another. Understanding of such role of lyrical narrator is supported with T. Shevchenko's work on the following versions of the poem. Fedir Vashchuk, analysing T. Shevchenko's work at "Haidamaki" in "Kobzar" of 1860 in comparison with its first edition, stated that the basic precept of the editorial work was "to achieve the organic unity of form and content, to improve architecture of the whole poem, a harmonious combination of all of its parts, to achieve uniform composition and structural record" [1, p.29]. The writer has made various changes, renamed chapters and added clarifications of historical character. However, among the amendments there is a group of verses, which were introduced at the end of the chapter before starting the next. For example, there were inserted rows at the end of the section "Lebedyn": «Не журися, сподівайся / Та богу молися, / А мені тепер на Умань / треба подивитися» [11, с.179]. ["Do not worry, hope / And pray to God, / And I must / see Uman"]. F.Vaschuk noticed the compositional function of this narrator's lyrical digression remarking that it has two reasons: "Firstly it logically completes, frames preceding chapter, and secondly it is aimed at the following -- "Gonta in Uman "[1, p.30]. Along with clarifying changes of auctorial discourse of narrator T. Shevchenko resorted to changing narrative representation of events. Thus, the "Feast of Lysyanka" episode originally told as quotational dramatized discourse -- Yarema's and Gonta's dialogue, and then it was changed to the transposed discourse as narrator recounts events less interspersing into heroes' speech. Thus, the author tried to avoid too much emphasis on the transient moment, because the most intense moments in the poem are presented in dramatized scenes, which depict the dramatic story change; instead resuming to lyrical story the narrator links the following key episodes. Except meaning the main scenes are outlined that they are rendered in the present tense; they contain direct speech of heroes; the picture unfolds with minimum intervention of the lyric author as if before the reader's eyes. Churchwarden murder scene, events in Chigirin are shown as a dramatic performance. When the narrator describes a banquet in Lysynka, his speech is interrupted by numerous remarks of characters that gives the impression of a fast tempo, vociferousness of haidamaki's festivities. There is no thoroughness in the depiction of events; the narrator draws images only with individual strokes.

Romantic poem had minimum of generalized fragments, in which teller would recount events. "Vertex" episodes dominate in the romantic narrative and the author ignores all non-essential focusing the reader's attention at the most dramatic moments at the expense of the links between the parts of the poem. Therefore, it may seem to the reader that there is no action development in the story and this or that scene is unnecessary, as it is different from the previous meaningfully or emotionally. An example may serve the description of the above mentioned haidamaki's banquet in Lysynka, and then -- in Uman. These scenes were used to reproach to the author to say that they are artistically of little importance, to accusing him of chanting massacre. According to I. Franko "it was possible to avoid repeating the description of fires and bestial feasts among the corpses and destruction" [9, p.55]. It is also pointed to the ambiguity of these terrible pictures in modern literary criticism. Thus, O. Zabuzhko draws attention to violent Dionysian people's fleshliness in haidamaki's celebration depiction, but humorous folk culture, in her opinion, can not bring the subject (possessed with a thirst for revenge people) from the circle of earthly hell. As the material-physical dimension loses its life-affirming nature and depicted folk comicalness is weak [6, p. 110-111]. It is worth be noted that the appearance of such pictures in "Haidamaki" is primarily conditioned with to the literary tradition. As for chapters "Red feast", "Feast in Lysyanka" there is used "a traditional symbol of epic poetry as a feast in the sense of battleground" [10, p.57-58]. Feast after defeating enemies -- is the motif of the heroic epic in the world literature. Hence it seems that when the author moves away from the romantic discourse, even to the sphere of folklore imaginative thinking, then as if it leads to loss of art.

It is worth to mention aesthetic experience of A. Pushkin that after a cycle of "eastern" poems with their poetic Byronic expressiveness moved to creation of the epic poem, namely "Poltava". The artist conceived the poem not in the traditional framework of heroic epic but in instated under the influence of Byron compositional form of lyric poem of romantic era [5, s.200]. Epic part led to more consistent account of events and to the dominance of narrative element. The poem has no spectacular beginning and there is an introduction and the events are developing in chronological order. The narrator tells a linked story, describes the motives of actions, estimates characters. This is not a collection of episodes, but a solid story. The author saves a line of romantic love of Mazepa and Maria. There can be noted a departure from the psychological characteristics of the Byronic type to clearly outlined moralizing attitude to the characters, whereby Mazepa -- heroic villain. This maintains an important role of lyrical narrator, who has a wide range of expression as in the romantic lyric-epic poem.

That epic element affects the artistic structure, even if the author works in line of the romantic discourse. This is evident in T. Shevchenko's poem, who is tackling the historical material used chronological account of events, he gave an extended exposition of historical character in the "Introduction", his lyrical narrator serves as compositional device combining with his speech separate pictures. There are present narrative moments in the work when the narrator conveys the rebellion events, but, as already mentioned, there is no full exposition of the Koliyivshchyna history there. It is more expressive presentation of revenge of rebellious people with folk imagery, where the romantic hero is backgrounded. The author specifies only two points: episode of consecration of knives and culminating picture in Uman.

If we compare the "Poltava" and "Haidamaki", it is clear that T. Shevchenko went the other way. Pondering at the attempt of the Russian poet to transfer the romantic discourse to epic, V. Zhyrmunskyy pointed to the evolution of Pushkin in "Poltava", his departure from the "eastern poems": "Byron sought primarily emotional expressiveness, the direct expression of lyrical excitement and the declamatory and melodramatic emphatic glamour. Pushkin seems deliberately refrained from direct expression of emotional excitement and stops at everyday, almost trivial detail of external, objective reality and thus reaches with this modest constraint higher tragic tension "[5, p.216], T. Shevchenko, on the contrary, does not give up the emotional content while discling epic theme. While working on the poem, he rather strengthened it, that is confirmed with the entry of the poem written later than the work itself. P. Kulish's view that the introduction adds nothing to the development of the poem is incorrect, and, therefore, it should be removed (letter dated July 25, 1846). On the contrary, the introduction organically combines lyrical narrative style in the body. It was very appreciated by I. Franko indicating that the lyrical digressions and reflections of the poet are the most valuable in the poem.

The poem's introduction played an important communicative function. T. Shevchenko, unlike the West-Europen, Polish, Russian Romantics, was a poet of enslaved nation. Colonial status of Ukraine affected the functioning of the literature that had just emerged on the basis of the Ukrainian language. Therefore the introduction prepared the reader to accept the work written on a new basis, which shows haidamaki's rebellion from unusual side to readers. T. Shevchenko could not rely on tradition or Ukrainian epic poem; and the topic was not also worked out. On the contrary, the official historiography interpreted uprising of Ukrainian peasants negatively, seeing it as anarchic force aiming at their own enrichment at the expense of their masters. Condemnation of Haidamaki also sounded in artistic works of Polish writers. Instead, the reader can only know a romantic interpretation of a thief in the work of the Romantics, but it is not directly correlated with the popular uprising. The author defended his choice of language, themes and principles of depiction because he knew the reaction to the emergence of "Kobzar".

In addition, the introduction played another important function, i.e. to create an image of the lyrical narrator. This is the role performed with the preface to the first part of "Evenings on a Farm Near Dykanka" by Nikolai Gogol, which shows the image of Rudy Panko and disclosures his world outlook. In the very way T. Shevchenko forms the reader's an idea about the narrator's world view, his understanding of the historical past of Ukraine. In the introduction, the poet establishes the artist as demiurge who creates artistic fiction while aware of its important social role. This justifies many metalepsises, interference in the artistic world in the author's work, his omniscience. However, the narrator resorts to communication game in the text of the poem: he knows about the future course of events, because he talks about past events, but he views it as a surprised or agitated observer of events. This is done in order to form a relationship with the reader to the events depicted, but avoid intrusive moralistic or ideological positions (as found in Pushkin's "Poltava").

Thus, the lyric-epic poem "Haidamaki" is based on the principles of romantic discourse. The author does not set out a purpose to create a heroic epic as it is indicated by including narrative distance between the narrator and depicted events. This allowed him to creatively apply picture romantic composition techniques and principles of modelling characters for a major historical event. Lyrical style narrative showed the author's talent even in developing such controversial topic in the eyes of readers.

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