PRINCESS AS A READER. THE SENSE OF THE REMINISCENSES IN OL’HA KOBYLYANS’KA’S NOVEL

Abstract

Comparative literature sets our home tradition in a differential frame and takes us out of our culture altogether, offering us the provisional freedom to imagine our world, and ourselves, differently. But what if we remained in this new world forever, with only some Romantic Ideals taken from our family culture? That is the sense of the Neo-Romantic discours in Ol’ha Kobylyans’ka’s novel “A Princess” (“Tsarivna”) in comparison with the German Romantic tradition (Kobylyans’ka’s family culture). Some critics then and now suggest that Kobylyans’ka’s feminist ideas and her special feminine style were taken from E. Marlitt’s novels for women. But E. Marlitt’s novels sure weren’t the only German sourse of Kobylyans’ka’s novel. Many pages of the book are given to the scenes of reading and discussion German (and other European) poetry and fiction and listening German (and other European) music. The central role in this literature / musical discours plays Heinrich Heine’s Lorelei.