Territory of Freedom: Natural and Cultural Monuments in the Life and Works of Maksym Rylskyi

Author

Bosa Liubov

a Ph.D. in History, a senior research fellow of the Ukrainian Ethnological Centre Department of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kyiv, Ukraine). ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5381-8151

Territory of Freedom: Natural and Cultural Monuments
in the Life and Works of Maksym Rylskyi

Abstract

The article is based on published and unpublished sources. An outstanding poet and scientist Maksym Rylskyi appeal to the problem of natural and cultural monuments preservation in his life and works is considered in the article. The observations of the current state of living memory of the poet’s staying in the city of Irpin are carried out in the anthropological perspective.

The authoress is claiming that the poet and scientist appeals to the reader through the appropriate categories, raising the important topic of the inner freedom of a person in a closed society. The natural and cultural heritage of Ukraine is considered by M. Rylskyi as an original free space through which he tries to realize his creative, national and public plans in the confined conditions of the Soviet totalitarianism. It is known that the poet has been accused repeatedly of escapism, escape from real life (especially in spatial and landscape lyrics). However, many facts can be found in Rylskyi life and work, when poetry has become a living response to real events and merged with his actions regarding the preservation of natural and cultural monuments. In particular, among other things, the author has been worried with the problem of illegal interference in natural landscapes, the need to protect cultural and natural monuments, preserve memory on Ukrainian luminaries, etc. To confirm this, the authoress has attracted the epistolary heritage of M. Rylskyi and reminiscences on him. Regarding the current state of functioning of the cultural memory on M. Rylskyi himself and the circle of like-minded people in Irpin, an express survey of the inhabitants of the region is conducted. It shows a lack of awareness and the urgent need for purposeful activity of the local community in supporting the cultural and natural heritage of Iprin river basin.

Keywords

Maksym Rylskyi, life and works, cultural monuments, natural monuments, landscape, memory, Nadiia Farm, Irpin.

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