A FUTURIST IN TERNOPIL: HISTORICAL AND LITERARY CONTEXTS OF THE VISIT OF THE POLISH POET BRUNO JASIENSKI

Abstract

The article is devoted to the early period of the life and work of the Polish futurist poet Bruno Jasienski and the contexts that preceded his visit to Ternopil.The research allows us to better understand not only the artistic innovations of futurism, but also the typology of the personality that this movement formed and represented, as well as to study in closer detail the intensification of Ukrainian-Polish intercultural relations in the early twentieth century in the era of the short-lived interwar heyday of avant-garde movements in Central and Eastern Europe. The study reveals the key prerequisites for close cooperation between artists from the Polish and Ukrainian contexts, namely, the basic biographical data of the participants of the literary event in question, the stylistic and aesthetic features of the participants’ works, the consequences and further fates of the artists. A wide range of materials not only of a historical and literary nature, but also of linguistic, historical, philosophical and art history are used. For almost ninety years, the figure of Bruno Jasienski has been a source of controversy and evaluation, as if the artist himself had deliberately programmed such a reception of his personality and artistic output not only during his lifetime but also for the period after his tragic death. During the interwar period, Jasienski violated established social and aesthetic norms, earning him a reputation as a scandalous artist, and after leaving Poland, he became forever unprofitable for many political regimes because of his beliefs, ethnicity, and origin. The study emphasises the fact of creative discussion and exchange of aesthetic visions between artists from Ukraine and Poland, whose names are now known to the general public. Based on the available materials about this historical period, we come to the conclusion that Bruno Jasenski was the only representative of the futurist movement who visited Ternopil at the time of the heyday of futurism in Poland and Ukraine.