Рецепція Німеччини в усних автобіографічних наративах українців

Abstract

Collective ideas about the image of a foreign land and the people inhabiting it are a significant part of national consciousness. The paper examines in what way the German land and the German ethnic group appear according to modern Ukrainians, what is the embodiment of <Germanness= for our contemporaries. This can be found most fully by analyzing the oral narratives told in the memorate convention. Thus, methodological approaches developed within the framework of folklore studies, structural narratology and imagology are used in the research paper. The scientific novelty of the thesis is that, for the first time in Ukrainian folklore studies, a comprehensive analysis of oral autobiographical narratives about Germany and its inhabitants was carried out, the main structural and semantic types of narratives about Germany were determined, their connection with the oral narrative tradition was shown, and the origins of images Germany and the German as folklore and mythological constructs about distant lands and the people living there were clarified. The empirical basis of the research is 161 narrative-structured interviews, most of which were recorded and transcribed over the past three years by the author. The total volume of deciphered materials is about 800 pages. The first chapter, titled <Oral folk prose about Germany: historiographical and methodological aspects of the study=, examines the research conducted in the field of modern humanities, where narratology has become a fruitful approach in solving a wide range of problematic issues. It is noted that due to its universality, the oral narrative has become the research object in a number of social and humanitarian disciplines, such as history, psychology, linguistics, folklore studies, etc. Each of these disciplines has developed or is still forming its own methodological base for the study of narrative texts, revealing not only the individual person9s experience, but, what is the most important, reproducing the collective experience in which the narrator9s general cultural and communicative intentions were synthesized. It is emphasized on the universality of the story itself that is inherent in human culture and has existed in all eras and within different social groups, and therefore serves as a powerful means of broadcasting human worldviews and prejudices. An analysis of the fixation and research of folklore about Germany during the First and Second World Wars, post-war and modern period was carried out. If in the 1920s only the methods of collecting and processing material were outlined, in the 1940s and 1950s separate studies about the experience of contacts with Germans during the Second World War and about the folklore of Ukrainians taken abroad appeared, then in the last decades a number of interesting publications studying the narratives about the experience of star workers, concentration camp prisoners, immigrants, etc. emerged. Stories of people forcibly deported to Germany attract the attention of both oral historians and folklorists. It was noted that in none of the works known to us it was specifically investigated how the image of Germany or the attitude towards the German people is formed, what folklore mechanisms are <turned on= when describing the experience of a Ukrainian who visited Germany or communicated with Germans. The method of recording and interpreting autobiographical prose is outlined. Thanks to the application of the structured narrative interview method, involving recording information on digital media, and then deciphering (transcribing) in accordance with the requirements to preserve the lexical, grammatical and syntactic features of the narrator9s speech, it was possible to record and use in the further study the autobiographical respondents9 stories of life which is somehow related to Germany. In the second chapter, <Structural features of oral autobiographical narratives about Germany=, the syntax of the stories is investigated. A significant part of our material is the cronicates, reflecting the Ukrainians9 system of ideas about Germany. We can qualify most of the recorded material as memorates, but we did not manage to record any fabulates. It is noted that a trip to Germany and the experience of communication with the representatives of the German ethnic group is an important and unique event in a person9s life, it significantly influences him, therefore it relates to five criteria of an event (according to W. Schmid), and therefore it is actively told becoming a part of an autobiographical narrative. The types of plots used by our storytellers are defined. Narratives about staying in Germany (contemporary experience of labor migration, education, tourism, as well as the experience of Ostarbeiter) are characterized by the use of fables about <distant lands= and the people inhabiting them. The opposition we/them is important here. Stories about the experience of contact with the Germans during the Second World War are built according to the following models: unjustified expectations about enemy Germans who demonstrate a humane attitude towards the local population, stories about miraculous salvation, stories contrasting the nobility of German soldiers with the savagery and cruelty of the Soviet <warriorliberators=. The plot of <German= narratives is analyzed from the point of view of the pace of the story (according to J. Genette). It was found that the typical scenes covered in the most detail are the description of Germany, its nature, the beauty of German cities and towns, the typical features of representatives of the German people, their differences from Ukrainians. In the form of scenes, such episodes as the first stay in Germany, the first meeting with the Germans, their help, and the display of various cultural practices that distinguish them from Ukrainians are displayed. Only extended episodes are relevant for the semantics of an autobiographical narrative about Germany, because important events require a detailed storytelling. Some events are recounted succinctly, in the form of a summary. This indicates that they are less important to the narrator and the creation of the narrative itself. Reasons for traveling to Germany, formal things related to work, studies, etc. are given as short summaries. Pauses in the mentioned texts can be narrative, descriptive and meditative containing additional information consistent with the content of the main story. The narrative figure of ellipsis is the most difficult to interpret, because it is connected with the unpronounced. Among our material, there are practically no mentions of conflicts and problems during the stay in Germany, problems and trials that had to be overcome. This can be explained by the fact that the narrative about the ideal country has no place for stories about any conflict situations. Regarding homodiegesis and heterodiegesis in the studied narratives, the material is represented mainly by homodiegetic narratives in stories about modern Germany and heterodiegetic narratives in stories about the experience of the Second World War. However, this can be accounted not to the internal structure of the narrative, but to the fact that there are practically no direct witnesses of the Second World War left, and therefore their stories have become part of family tradition. Among the features of the narration presentation, we emphasize the difference between the male/female text, the use of speech forms typical for folklore narration. The third chapter <Image-Symbolic Paradigm of Autobiographical Narratives= is dedicated to the study of the image of the German as alien/other, which is one of the most expressive ethical and aesthetic dominants. The background for their formation became intercultural and social political processes having led to the creation of ethnical stereotypes in oral folk art, among which the image of a German can be clearly traced. The recorded material shows that the folkloric portrait of the social stereotypical image of the German is endowed with distinct dominant features, which nowadays are usually interpreted in a positive way. It was found out that very often the phrase <typical German= becomes clear to the interlocutors and does not require additional interpretation, while the respondents resort to stereotyping the image. The construction of so-called <mind maps= (man-made images of a part of the surroundings) is defined, when a group or an individual, using certain semantics and connotations, describes the surrounding territories, showing their understanding of the social and cultural space. It is observed that national images have a dual nature: they are mainly constructed not only <from above=, but also <from below=, from the point of view of beliefs, superstitions, needs of the common person. If the connotation of <alien= in oral folk art is perceived through the <negative= sign, then in the studied narratives, the idealized image of the German and the German land can be traced. The Russian-Ukrainian war actualized the opposition between a good German and a bad Russian reflected in the material. The image of the German soldier in narratives about the experience of the Second World War is ambivalent. The functioning of the motive about <distant lands= is studied. It is noted that the mentioned motif is present in the oral folk art of many peoples and is the most universal form of this type of legend. One of such <distant lands= is Germany, and stories about it use the folklore-mythological motif of the <paradise garden=, emphasize the absolute harmony between man and nature. The collected material shows that the motif of utopian relations among the population can be traced in the oral tradition, where the attributes of harmony and abundance are also highlighted. Very often, the narrator9s value orientations are emphasized by opposing "us and them", "here and there".