Biblical Allusions in Expressionist Poetry in the Context of Austrian, German, and Ukrainian Literature: A Comparative Analysis

Authors

  • Tetiana MYKHALCHUK Tetiana Mykhalchuk is a founder of the Amsterdam Ukrainian Research Institute, and an affiliated researcher of Scandinavian and German Studies at the Amsterdam School for Culture and History at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands., Netherlands

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29357/issn.2521-179X.2016.16.206

Keywords:

Biblical allusions, Biblical reminiscences, Biblical paraphrases, Comparative literature, Expressionism in poetry, Hamartiological, Pneumatological, Christological, Apocalyptic and eschatological motifs, European culture.

Abstract

With the application of comparative methodology, this article analyzes biblical allusions, reminiscences, paraphrases, direct and indirect quotations, and symbols in the poetry of Austrian, German, and Ukrainian writers (Georg Heym, Mykola Bazhan, Mykola Khvyliovyj Todosii, T. Osmachka, Pavlo Tychyna, Georg Trakl, Stefan Zweig, Franz Werfel). It explores literary connections between interpretations of Old and New Testament quotations in the original languages (Hebrew and Greek) and poetry in the original languages (Ukrainian and German). Comparison of literary and biblical texts written in the original languages with literary and biblical texts in translation shows both similarities and significant differences in the interpretation of biblical elements. Hamartiological, pneumatological, Christological, apocalyptic, and eschatological motifs and their comparison with Ukrainian and German poetic texts are treated as a model of comparison for the transformation of categories of expression as one of the basic principles for many expressionist texts. 

Author Biography

Tetiana MYKHALCHUK, Tetiana Mykhalchuk is a founder of the Amsterdam Ukrainian Research Institute, and an affiliated researcher of Scandinavian and German Studies at the Amsterdam School for Culture and History at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Tetiana Mykhalchuk is a founder of the Amsterdam Ukrainian Research Institute, and an affiliated researcher of Scandinavian and German Studies at the Amsterdam School for Culture and History at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. She has taken part in studies at Leiden University, was a visiting PhD researcher at the University of Duisburg-Essen, and also a research worker at Utrecht University. Her current research topic is “Cultural and Scientific Exchange through Unintentional Mediators.” Mykhalchuk has also studied theory, history, and comparative literature at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and Ukrainian philology, world literature, and culture at Nizhyn University. She is one of the editors and coordinators of Religion, State, Society and Identity in Transition: Ukraine (2015) and is the author of recent books on European identity and cities: Discourses of European Expressionisms: The Image of the City in Expressionist Poetry of Twenty-Seven Countries (2014), and Reconciliation of East and West: German Mediations of Expressionist Scholarship after 1973 (2014).

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THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS

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MYKHALCHUK, Tetiana. 2016. “Biblical Allusions in Expressionist Poetry in the Context of Austrian, German, and Ukrainian Literature: A Comparative Analysis”. Theological Reflections: Eastern European Journal of Theology, no. 16 (May):227-46. https://doi.org/10.29357/issn.2521-179X.2016.16.206.

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No. 16 (2016): Theological Reflections: Euro-Asian Journal of Theology

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