“Rokovi”(yearly) holidays in the epistolary texts of Lesia Ukrainka: Christmas
№ 90, 2019
Culture of the word, 2019, № 90
UDC 811.161.2’373.2:27-565.3:821.161.2’05-6.09 Українка
Svitlana BOHDAN,
Ph.D. of Philology, Professor, Head of the Department of History and Culture of the Ukrainian Language of Lesіa Ukrainka Eastern European National University
13 Volya Ave., Lutsk 43025, Ukraine
Е-mail: bohdan-s@ukr.net
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4831-2770
Heading: From the history of culture and literacy
Language: Ukrainian
Abstract: The article describes the specifics of using lexeme Christmas in Lesya Ukrainkaʼs epistolary texts. The research utilizes continuous / overall selection techniques to reveal those specific features. Christmas belongs to the twelve most significant holidays of the Christian calendar. The addressee uses two basic names concerning this holiday: a rokove (annual) festival and Christmastide. The analysis of the compiled register of all the fixed contexts made it possible to determine four main functions of this lexeme in its functional style: chronotopic (most productive), nominative, ceremonial and identifying (low-productive).
Chronotope property of syntactic constructions with a lexeme Rizdvo (Christmas) reflects the three-dimensional event space of the addresser and its addressees, which corresponds to one of the traditions of describing different phenomena in the national-linguistic tradition of the Ukrainians. Each event takes place before / during or after the holiday. To convey this, Lesya Ukrainka used the following grammatical variants: do/do samoho Rizdva (before Christmas) and pered Rizdvom (before Christmas) – a prospective period, ob Rizdvi and na Rizdvo (at Christmas) with a clear predominance of the second variant – vlasne na Rizdvo (actually at Christmas); retrospective period – vid (vid samoho) Rizdva (since the very Christmas), z Rizdva / od Rizdva (from Christmas), po Rizdvi (after Christmas). The customary modern Ukrainian version for post-Christmas period «pislia Rizdva» has not been revealed in Lesya Ukrainkaʼs epistolary texts.
The observed authorʼs evaluations of the very process of celebrating Christmas (like other holidays) give grounds for asserting the overwhelming negative attitude of the addresser to any holiday. Various subjective factors are considered as the reason for it, namely poetessʼ internal rejection of certain stereotypical traditions of celebrations (a lot of visits, entertainments, parties and so on).
The study elucidates the peculiarities of the Christmas greetings used in the poetessʼ letters to various addressees, which probably also determines the linguistic mode of everyday communication of the Ukrainians, in particular, in the family. The study has not revealed any of the typical traditional congratulations in modern Ukrainian language – Khrystos Narodyvsia! Khrystos rodyvsia! Khrystos Rozhdaietsia! (Christ was born!). Alternatively, three phonetic variants of pre-Christmas greetings are fixed – Greetings on Christmas Eve: Sviatyi Vechir! Sviatyi Vecher! Sviatyi Vechor! (Holy Evening!).
Keywords: epistolary text, gerontonym, Christmas, Christmas, “fatal” holiday.
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