ARTISTIC FEATURES OF VASYL ZAKHARCHENKO’S SHORT STORY ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ROW

Abstract

The article offers an in-depth microanalysis of Vasyl Zakharchenko’s short story On Both Sides of the Row and characterizes the ideological and aesthetic features of its poetics. It is established that the writer’s artistic legacy, endowed with considerable aesthetic potential, has been assessed differently by literary scholars; however, the majority increasingly tend to regard it as a unique and distinctive phenomenon.
The purpose of the article is to clarify the artistic features of Zakharchenko’s short story On Both Sides of the Row and to explore its existential issues, which constitute the philosophical, worldview, and artistic-aesthetic dominant of the analyzed text. The study traces the specific ways in which key motifs of existential thought – particularly the motif of life choiceare realized, and examines the artistic functions of such existential categories as death, anxiety, suffering, fidelity, longing, pain, hope, etc. The writer constructs a model of the world in which the human being is the center of existence; the individual is presented as the only authentic reality, the foundation and the meaning of being.
The forms, techniques, and means of embodying psychologism in the literary work are analyzed, including the immersion into the characters’ consciousness through interior monologues, dialogues, and expressive artistic detail. The plot and compositional features of the short story are clarified. It is noted that the prose writer cultivates the «text within the text» device, incorporating evaluations, negations, approvals, moods, and emotions conveyed not only through words but also through intonation, intertext, context, and subtext. This strategy generates a shared experience grounded in polylogue and provides new meaning to meta-communication within the artistic discourse. The author of On Both Sides of the Row also employs intertextuality, primarily through allusion with attribution, including its simplest form – point allusion. The study substantiates the affiliation of Zakharchenko’s short story with the stylistic trend of neorealism enriched with lyrical elements.