Everyday Life of a Pilgrim in the Wanderings by Vasyl Hryhorovych-Barskyi

Abstract

The article examines the peculiarities of the creation of everyday life in Vasyl Hryhorovych-Barskyi’s work Wanderings. The poetics of walking has already been investigated by Petro Bilous and other scholars, but for the first time such analysis is performed in the context of the study of everyday life in works of this genre. Namely, the purpose of the study is to investigate the peculiarities of the pilgrim’s everyday life in a baroque work. The methodology applied combines hermeneutic, comparative-historical, genealogical methods. The attention is paid to genre features, the plot of the story, the personality of the author and the main aspects of the construction of artistic life. The person of the author is the central axis around which the everyday life of the work is built. Genre features consist in the combination of several genres: autobiography, travelogue, travel notes, diary, elements of life and self-insert novels. The space unfolds as a journey. Also the dynamics of changes in circumstances and changes in the personality of the author can be seen. Various components of everyday life are presented: the material and spiritual world of the character, which is sketched horizontally and vertically. The reconstructed worldview of the baroque man appears in a kaleidoscope of detailed descriptions of the life-world of different cities, customs, religious denominations, beliefs, so the traveller’s personality undergoes changes in this everyday journey. The influence of science and literature on the everyday life of the Wanderings is also noted.