THE BOUNDARIES AND PRECARIOUSNESS OF BEING IN THE PLAY BY ULAS SAMCHUK «THE MILLSTONES ARE MAKING NOISE»: RECEPTION IN TIMES OF FULL-SCALE INVASION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the distinctive features of the way of being of the main characters of Ulas Samchuk’s play The Millstone is Grinding. The theoretical foundations of the studio are the works of Karl Jaspers «Psychology of Worldviews» and Leonidas Donskis «Modernity in Crisis. A Dialogue on the Culture of Participation». The «slow» re-reading of the work of fiction led to a research focus on the interior, which the playwright describes in his explanations, the description of the exterior in his remarks, and the worldview gradually revealed in the dialogues. Already in the first act, the writer focuses on fear as an emotional process that destroys the stability of existence and causes the reality of each individual character to become loose. In contrast to those who can be easily «provoked, broken, split, sparred», Ulas Samchuk portrays a holistic personality that is revealed through the image of Andriy Mykhailyuk. The integrity of the individual directly correlates with the preserved identity, which appears in the play as a «mode of memory» (L. Donskis) not only of one’s own past, but of the past of several generations of one’s nation. It is this sense of involvement that gives us the strength to resist the intentions to «wipe the nation off the face of the planet». Evil in the play is an insidious force that includes both the Bolsheviks and the Germans, that is, any manifestation of totalitarian power. The spirit of the fight against evil is revealed in several ways: directly through the images of partisans and peasants using millstones, as well as through the image of the court, where it is important to remain firm. In order to have an emotional impact on the audience, the line containing the resolution of the play’s ideological conflict is delivered in silence, and the recipient can only hear the voice of the main character.