INDIVIDUALISM OF THE ARTIST AND FREEDOM OF CREATIVITY IN THE THEORETICAL CONCEPT BY MYKOLA YEVSHAN

The article is devoted to the study of the theoretical heritage of Mykola Yevshan, one of the leading literary critics of the aesthetic and psychological trend in Ukraine of the early 20th century. He was a prominent representative of Ukrainian modernism and Nietzscheanism and a psychologically oriented analyst of art and artistic creativity. His critical studies are devoted to the study of the artist’s creative personality, the study of art and the process of creativity. He defended the author’s right to create freely and considered his personal freedom a necessary condition for creativity. Mykola Yevshan was concerned with the problems of interaction between the artist and society, national peculiarities of creation and development of culture. He professed the idea of a «higher human» who is born in the process of creativity. His views are marked by the desire for secularism, modernity, and Europeanness. In the context of Ukraine’s contemporary historical and cultural development, the article analyses many Mykola Yevshan’s theoretical works that laid the foundations of avant-garde in Ukrainian theoretical science and literary criticism.