Shevchenko in Intermedial Parameters

Abstract

In the era of information overload and the involvement of AI in the educational process, interest in reading is fading. Students are actively using abridged versions of literary works, a considerable assortment of which is provided by the Internet, interspersed with sneaky advertising of gambling, "easy" earnings from dubious scams, fraud, and even treason. One of the effective means of pedagogical resistance to information aggression can be homework: read a work of art, a biography of the artist, watch a film based on it, and conduct a comparative analysis of the transcoding of the original text into a film text. This helps to interest in the literary source and its existence in a related art form, as well as to combat the growing illiteracy. A grateful material for correcting this situation is the life and work of T. Shevchenko, which occupies a significant place in our intermedia space. In this "cassette" article, we limited ourselves to reflections on the documentary-artistic epic "Taras Shevchenko. Testament" and works related to it. The article consists of student reviews of individual series of this project and related films, direct impressions that reflect the spectrum of contemporary youth sentiments, and the teacher's arrangement. Apart from purely linguistic and stylistic editing, I deliberately did not interfere in the student polylogue, striving to listen to their thoughts, impressions, and conclusions and not impose my own. Such an approach will help free the figure and work of the world genius Taras Shevchenko from scholastic ritualization, humanize it, and bring it closer to young recipients at a distance of the heart. Even philology students, unfortunately, are very poorly acquainted with the greatest achievements of Ukrainian film dramaturgy, its interaction and synesthesia with primary literary texts. This state of knowledge acquisition is also caused by the unnatural conditions of the modern educational process, which takes place either in person or in absentia and is interrupted by constant air alarms, power and heat outages, migrations, etc. Our cinema, despite adverse conditions, or even contrary to them, lives and develops, as evidenced by new documentary and art films, as well as the fact that six films related to Ukraine were on the shortlists of the 2026 Oscars. Young generations of humanitarians are called to strengthen this success.