GEOPOETIC ASPECTS OF BOHDAN LEPKYI'S “THE TALE OF MY LIFE”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of Bohdan Lepkyi's autobiographical memoir “The Tale of My Life” from the perspective of geopoetic features. Attention is drawn to the origin of the geopoetic view of a literary work, and a review of the literature on this issue is made. It is emphasized that geopoetics studies the images of geographical space in a literary work, local texts that characterize certain places mastered in national culture, and works on the conceptualization of these images. Geopoetic strategies in literary studies make it possible to examine literary texts in terms of their cartography, the writer's autobiography, to study topoi, and loci of geographical space; the study of national landscapes declared in the works is especially important. The work “The Fairy Tale of My Life” by Bohdan Lepkyi can be called an autobiographical memoir, as the author speaks about his personal life, but does so against the background of family and social events. Having defined the genre of the work as a “fairy tale”, the author refers to the important components of a child's upbringing: family, school, and books. The space (geographical, spiritual, mood) becomes special for him, which makes it possible to feel the unity of family, comrades, and native land. The writer depicts with special feelings of admiration and gratitude the landscapes that surrounded him from childhood, changed after moving, and transformed over the years when his preferences changed. Surrounding villages, towns, fields, roads, rivers, forests, gardens – all of this defines a special geographical space, the love for which Bohdan Lepkyi conveys to his readers. He pays special attention to the city where he lived and studied – Berezhany. His admiration for its architecture, unusual mood, and the beauty of the surrounding landscapes allows the author to outline the national landscape from a personal perspective. “The Fairy Tale of My Life” by Bohdan Lepkyi defines important geographical, social, aesthetic, and spiritual coordinates, without which the formation, development, and activity of the author as a writer and public figure would have been impossible. The analysis of the autobiographical and memoir allows us to conclude that geographical space is important for the formation of a person.