The Topos of the Carpathian Village in the Prose of Vasyl Stefanyk and Władysław Orkan

Abstract

The article presents a comparative typological analysis of the artistic space (topos) of the Carpathian village in the short prose of representatives of Ukrainian and Polish modernism – Vasyl Stefanyk and Władysław Orkan. The representation of the rustic space is interpreted in the writers’ works through the concept of “House – Field – Temple” (Serhii Krymskyi). The study highlights both common features and distinctive approaches to the artistic comprehension of the social universe. The thematic affinity of the works lies in the depiction of the life of Carpathian peasants marginalized by the economic and colonial structures of their time. The geographical and ethnographic background assumes different functional significance in the works of both authors. In Stefanyk’s short stories, the village topos functions as a locus of tragedy and confinement (a topos of despair), where space is condensed into the internal experience of the peasant, symbolizing his fate and the inevability of emigration. In Orkan, Pidhallia serves as a space in which the social drama of mountain inhabitants unfolds against the backdrop of magnificent natural landscapes. The Ukrainian and Polish rustic spaces are represented not only by physical locations (house, field, church, mountains, pastures, rivers), but also by archetypal symbols that reflect the fullness of a peasant’s existence: from private life to the sacred. The concept of “House – Field – Temple” is key to understanding the spiritual and existential worlds of the protagonists in Stefanyk’s and Orkan’s works. Based on the poetics of space, as well as psychological and social dominants, the article analyses the difference between the impressionistic model of a representative of the “Młoda Polska” (“Young Poland”) movement and the expressionistic spatial reduction characteristic of the Ukrainian author. The shared regional space is transformed in two national literatures, serving as a tool for expressively representing the social and existential problems of Carpathian peasants at a historical turning point.