FEATURES OF VIRTUAL EMIGRATION IN THE COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES “ARCANUM” BY YURI VINNYCHUK

Abstract

The object of the study was to investigate the features and characteristics of virtual emigration of an artist in a totalitarian society using the example of Y. Vynnychuk’s collection of early short stories “Arcanum.” The article proposes the term “virtual emigration” as parallel to “ inner emigration,” since it refers not so much to destructive egocentric isolation as to the constructive expansion of the inner world through the creation/release of individual fantasies, while preserving the meaning of conventional displacement. The structural, symbolic and semantic components of the collection are examined through the prism of the concept of inner / virtual emigration. Particular attention is paid to the semiotic decoding of the multi-layered, culturally conditioned imagery with which the author veiled and at the same time emphasized his idea, for which the relevant artistic context is actualized. The theme, structure, and imagery and stylistic specifics of the collection are analyzed, with separate attention given to the genesis and ideosphere of the poem “Arcanum.” It is determined that the integrity of the perception of the collection as an isolated virtual topos is ensured by a central character, emotive markers of existential despair and sadness, leitmotif symbolism and metaphor, and a conceptual semiosphere. It has been found that the contours of the artist’s virtual world are created by neo-baroque parables, allegoricality, anti-imperial social criticism embodied through multimodal irony, shocking eroticism, mythologicality, neo-Gothic mysticism, and pervasive philosophicity. The writer achieves the effect of reflecting postmodern relative fluid reality through the use of syncretism of prosodic, kinesic, and visual images, internal rhythm and melody, and methods of magical realism. It has been concluded that Y. Vynnychuk used stylistic and plot elements from the “Arcanum” stories in all his next works, so the majestic and décadence Arcanum, imagined in his youth, appears as a constant constructive virtual topos of the writer’s soul.