“SWANS”: MYKHAILO DRAI-KHMARA’S SONNET OF IMMORTALITY — SEMANTICS, CONTEXT, AND ALLUSIONS OF THE WORK

Mykhailo Drai-Khmara’s sonnet “Swans” is one of the iconic poems of the ‘Executed Renaissance’ era. With its semiotic and semantic layers, contextual and subtextual insights, and intertextual projections, the work forms a distinctive creative cluster. It expresses the trajectory of symbolism and neoclassicism, revealing their roots in past traditions while simultaneously outlining the aspirations and hopes for the future creative life of the poem’s author and other neoclassicists. The paper focuses on the contextual space, intertextual connections, allusions, and parallels of M. Drai-Khmara’s “Swans”. It examines the combination of neoclassical form and symbolist content, analyzes the work’s aesthetic and figurative paradigm, and traces its roots in both European symbolism and Ukrainian neoclassicism. The analysis places the sonnet in the context of both French symbolism and Ukrainian modernism, where the image of a swan is central. It is demonstrated how an aberration of ideological interpretation can occur: being an artistic projection of the of French poets’ association the “Abbey,” the poem was reinterpreted by official criticism as an allusion to the Russian occupation regime in enslaved Ukraine. The sonnet “Swans” can also be examined from a historiosophical perspective regarding the completion of the Literary Discussion in Ukraine (1925–1928). Within this discursive space, “Swans” serves as a final note of the neoclassicists’ participation in the debate. In “Swans,” the formal perfection of the sonnet—with its distinct rigor in complying with all canonical requirements for the strophic structure and individual parts—is combined with the noble spirit inherent in this poetic genre. “Swans” is not merely a hymn to friendship, creative aspirations, and the desire to restore and modernize Ukrainian cultural space. This sonnet is a universal expression of the brotherhood of artists who share common aspirations and visions for the development of literature.