The Structure of the Poem "Kоли тебе здолає тлум смертей" byVasyl Stus

Abstract

This article attempts to analyze the structure of the poem Коли тебе здолає тлум смертей written by famous Ukrainian dissident poet Vasyl Stus (1938–1985). The poem undoubtedly reflects the essential features of Stus’s poetic style of the 1970s as the poet had been working on the text for at least three years (1972–1975) before he was arrested for the first time. The characteristic features of the construction of the form and the semantics of the analyzed text enable the author of the article to argue that the structure of the poem demonstrates not only formal similarities or textual coincidences with other poetic texts of the Palimpsests collection (as well as his earlier poems), but also reveals a deep inner connection with Stus’s two critical essays (1970–1971) on Volodymyr Svidzinsky and Pavlo Tychyna, which undoubtedly indicates that the problems and issues raised in the poetic text are of significant importance for the poet. It is necessary to note that one of the central elements of Stus’s poetic world is the traditional Ukrainian language (in particular, a literary one), since the poet neglects the Soviet version of the Ukrainian language in the second half of the 20^th century considering it Russified and “alien”.