MYKOLA BILOZERSKYI AND HIS "TARAS HRYGORYEVYCH SHEVCHENKO ACCORDING TO THE MEMORIES OF DIFFERENT PERSONS (1831–1861)": WHERE MEMORIES END AND FOLKLORE BEGINS

Abstract

Background. Creating a source base for reconstruction of biography is one of the most urgent problems of biography. Little is known about the folklorist Mykola Bilozerskyi, the history of the study of his activities, which began with the obituary, includes the names of A. Krymskyi, B. Kyrdan, and N. Barabash, whose works only outline the main directions of research. The article by M. Bilozersky “Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko according to the memoirs of various persons (1831–1861)” belongs to the undeservedly left on the margins of Shevchenko studies. The goal is to study the memories of Shevchenko as a kind of folklore material important for specialists.

Methods. There are fundamental scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, as well as historical methods that are based on historicism and objectivity and allow the interpretation of biographical principles. That allows us to highlight the most important at recollection expressed by M. Bilozersky, to create folk ideas about the figure of T. Shevchenko, recorded in folklore.

Results. Thanks to the analysis, it was found that among the memoirs of Vasyl Tarnovskyi (senior), Viktor Zabyla, Oleksiy Senchyl-Stefanovskyi, Andrii Lyzogub, and Mykhailo Lazarevskyi, M. Bilozerskyi published tales, legends, and folklore stories of an anecdotal nature, which are of great importance for folkloristics. These plots, on the one hand, are a continuation of the tradition of sacralization of the hero, and on the other, they are an interpretation of the figure in a social and everyday and ironic way. Samples are marked not only by signs of orality, collective creation, but also have variants, which are defining features of folklore. Some contain characteristic folklore concepts that add traditionality to the narratives.

Conclusions. M. Bilozerskyi worked using folkloristic methods: he directed the narration with questions, focused the narrator's attention on the essential. Recording memories of T. Shevchenko, the folklorist was able to recreate a kind of folk poetic "semantic field" in which Shevchenko's genius was formed. To this day, his records have weight as one of the first publications of folklore about T. Shevchenko.

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