Kotsiubynskyi vs Conrad: Impressionistic crossroads
Abstract
This article presents a comparative study of Ukrainian and English literary Impressionism through the works of Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi’s Fata Morgana and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Drawing on the literary theory of Impressionism and the principles of cross-cultural (comparative) literary studies, the research investigates how writers from distinct linguistic and cultural backgrounds employ impressionistic techniques to convey psychological depth, sensory perception, and moral complexity. The study explores how the key traits of literary Impressionism – subjectivity, fragmentation, and vivid sensory imagery – manifest within diverse historical, ideological, and aesthetic contexts shaped by empire, national identity, and modernist thought.
Particular attention is devoted to the role of translation as an intermediary between languages and artistic systems. Comparative analysis of Ukrainian-English and English-Ukrainian translations reveals how impressionistic nuances are maintained, altered, or reinterpreted, shedding light on the challenges of preserving mood, rhythm, and atmosphere across cultural borders. Through close textual and discourse analysis, the study identifies both convergences and divergences in the ways Kotsiubynskyi and Conrad construct imagery, interiority, and representations of colonial or peripheral experience.
Ultimately, the paper positions Impressionism as a transnational aesthetic mode that transcends national and linguistic frontiers, linking Ukrainian and English modernisms through shared concerns with perception, consciousness, and artistic form. This research contributes a new intercultural perspective on literary Impressionism and its capacity to articulate the complexity of human experience in a global context.
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References
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