Lyrical autobiography in Lina Kostenko's work

Гальчук, Оксана Василівна (2026) Lyrical autobiography in Lina Kostenko's work Закарпатські філологічні студії, 3 (45). pp. 229-235. ISSN 2663-4880, 2663-4899

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Abstract

The article analyzes Lina Kostenko’s lyrical works through the prism of autobiographical poetics. Among the tasks that enable the achievement of this goal –namely, identifying the principal artistic codes of poems containing autobiographical elements – are: first, proposing a typology of Lina Kostenko’s autobiographical poetic texts; second, examining how facts from the author’s life are integrated into the fabric of the poems; and third, analyzing intertextual units that function as images of the poet’s artistic self-identification. The main research methods employed are hermeneutic, intertextual, and mythopoetic. In the course of analyzing lyrical autobiographism as a component of Lina Kostenko’s creative oeuvre, two groups of texts are distinguished, in each of which the autobiographical element manifests itself on a different “scale”. In the works of the first group (“I Love the Legends of Our Family,” “Mother,” “I Dreamed of My Grandmother,” “Three Princesses,” “The Merry Ghost of the Grand-grandmother”, “Temples,” “My First Poem Was Written in a Trench,” “To My Daughter,” “I Grew Up in Kyiv Venice”), the poet reconstructs a portrait of her family, through the images of lyrical protagonists, a “close circle” of Lina Kostenko’s world emerges, marked by humanistic principles. The retrospective rendering of family history intertwines with national history, forming a space where individual and collective memory converge. In the second group of poems (“The Shadow of Sisyphus,” “The Leitmotif of Happiness,” “And Comfort Sings Like a Siren,” “For the Sin of Happiness at the Wrong Time,” “I Break Free Like Laocoön”), Lina Kostenko articulates her own – primarily creative – self, appealing to world intertext. Facts from the biographies of mythical and real historical figures are transformed into objects of artistic reflection on her personal destiny and on the fate of the artist in general under conditions of “cultural blockage.” A separate subgroup comprises poems (“The Return of Shevchenko,” “Oh No, It Is Too Early to Think of Everything,” “The Artist”) in which the autobiographical element appears fragmentarily, predominantly as a parallel to the biographical narrative of the lyrical hero – an eminent artist – or as a retrospective topos. The study allows us to conclude that lyrical autobiographism in Lina Kostenko’s works constitutes an authorial strategy for demonstrating the pronounced anthropocentrism of her poetry, oriented toward articulating cultural and personal identity.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Lina Kostenko; autobiographical writing; anthropocentrism; intertextuality; interpretation; poetry; self-identity
Subjects:	Статті у базах даних > Index Copernicus Статті у періодичних виданнях > Фахові (входять до переліку фахових, затверджений МОН)
Divisions:	Факультет української філології, культури і мистецтва > Кафедра світової літератури
Depositing User:	професор Оксана Гальчук
Date Deposited:	30 Apr 2026 13:03
Last Modified:	30 Apr 2026 13:03
URI:	https://elibrary.kubg.edu.ua/id/eprint/57249

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