Author
RudaTetiana
a Doctor of Philology, a chief research fellow of the Screen, Stage Arts and Culturology 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/0000-0002-9055-9056
Maksym Rylskyi and Oleksandr Biletskyi: Personal and Creative Contacts
Abstract
Maksym Rylskyi and Oleksandr Biletskyi have been connected with long professional and personal relationships formed in the post-war period, although they know each other since the 1930s. Having been in Kharkiv, M. Rylskyi visits the family of Biletskyi, where scientists, poets, artists gather. M. Rylskyi and O. Biletskyi have common traits of character and preferences (love for music, theatre, comprehensive gift), common scientific interests aimed, in particular, at studying and promoting Ukrainian literature, integration of Ukrainian culture into the world one. They have also made a significant contribution to the development of Ukrainian theater. O. Biletskyi is known as one of the organizers of the Young Spectator’s Theatre in Kharkiv (1921). He has written three plays for it, is a member of the theater artistic councils. M. Rylskyi has been in charge of the literary department of the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv Opera and Ballet Theater, translated and edited librettos of world opera classics. They have started or renewed some scientific trends in Literary Science, Folkloristics and Ethnology; initiated the development of Slavic and comparative studies. O. Biletskyi has laid the foundations for the investigation of ancient and foreign literatures in Ukraine. M. Rylskyi has written a number of valuable works in Translation Studies, Folkloristics, Poetics.They have worked always selflessly, even in the evacuation conditions. Both have been subjected to repressions in the 1930s, M. Rylskyi – in 1947 as well. Strong ideological pressure has a negative effect on their works to some extent. Managing academic institutes, they have proved to be excellent organizers of science, created scientific schools, formulated ideas, developed later by the students and followers (H. Verves, L. Novychenko, Yu. Bulakhovska and others are among them). A part of the correspondence of these outstanding personalities has been preserved, where both scientific and everyday matters are discussed. The contacts of M. Rylskyi and O. Biletskyi are of interest for researchers of their life and works, as well as for historians of science, helping to recreate the spiritual atmosphere of that difficult period.
Keywords
Maksym Rylskyi, Oleksandr Biletskyi, Literary Science, Folkloristics, Slavic Studies, theatre.
References
- BAZHYNOV, Ivan. The Russian Literature. In: Oleksa MYSHANYCH, ed.‑in‑chief and compiler. Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 1926–2001: Pages of History through 75 Years. Kyiv: Scientific Thought, 2003, pp. 354–374 [in Ukrainian].
- BILETSKYI, Oleksandr. What Remained in the Memory. In: Vitaliy DONCHYK (compiler), Ihor DZEVERIN (ed.-in-chief). About Oleksandr Biletskyi: Memories, Articles. Kyiv: Soviet Writer, 1984, pp. 284–298 [in Ukrainian].
- BILETSKYI, Oleksandr. On Works of Maksym Rylskyi. In: Oleksandr BILETSKYI, Collected Works: in Five Volumes. Kyiv: Scientific Thought, 1966, vol. 3, pp. 163–204 [in Ukrainian].
- NOVYCHENKO, Leonid. The Poetic Universe of Maksym Rylskyi (Period of 1941 to 1964). Kyiv: Intel, 1993, 271 pp. [in Ukrainian].
- RYLSKYI, Maksym. From Ancient Times to the Present Day. In: Vitaliy DONCHYK (compiler), Ihor DZEVERIN (ed.-in-chief). About Oleksandr Biletskyi: Memories, Articles. Kyiv: Soviet Writer, 1984, pp. 81–85 [in Ukrainian].
- RUDA, Tetiana. Unpublished Letters of Oleksandr Biletskyi to Maksym Rylskyi. In: Hanna SKRYPNYK ed.‑in‑chief, The Slavic World: Collected Scientific Papers.On the Occasion of the XVIIth International Congress of Slavicists (Paris, 2023). An Annual. Kyiv: Maksym Rylskyi IASFE, 2019, iss. 18, pp. 208–219 [in Ukrainian].