THE CULT OF «PROUD LETTERS»: ON THE QUESTION ABOUT THE MAIN TOPIC OF POETRY BY IHOR RYMARUK

This paper presents the first comprehensive analysis of the fundamental regularities underlying the artistic world constructed in the lyrics of I. Rymaruk. The study aims to elucidate the status of logodicy in Rymaruk’s poetry, a topic that has not yet been the focus of dedicated research and has only received sporadic poetological and comparative interpretations. The argument put forth in this paper posits that Rymaruk, a prominent figure of the 1980s literary generation, underscores the myth of the vitality of speech in his works. His poetry explores the characters’ pursuit of attunement to an appropriate communicative element while adhering to the cult of the word. The main attention is drawn to the fact that the accented approach generates a chain of events marked by a number of peculiarities in the works belonging to different periods. In particular, in the 1980s – early 1990s (the books «High Water», «During the Snowfall», «Voices of the Night»), the defense of the self-sufficient word, carried out by the lyrical subject – the enthusiast, is outlined in the foreground. In the late 1990s – early 2000s (section «Vision» from the selection «Virgo Obyda»), the challenges for a text full of authentic meanings and its supporters are more actively comprehended. Eventually, it is argued that in the collection «Bermuda Triangle» and to a large extent – in the posthumous edition «Divine Wind» the openness of language to everyday realities is tested, avoiding complete profanity. As it is proven, Rymaruk consistently shows an exceptional interest in the search for harmony between oral speech and writing, nuances (sometimes paradoxically) the polyphonic nature of colloquial and everyday vocabulary, observes the ambivalence of the textualization of the world. The results of the paper demonstrate that the most significant topic in the poetry of the eighties is invariably based on the awakening of a creative impulse and the idealization of «proud letters» (an image from the meditation «If I Made a Mistake...» from the collection «During the Snowfall»). Keywords logodicy, lyrical subject, word, myth, text, Igor Rymaruk.