Archive
2010 year, issue 5-6 read »
The Ethnology Notebooks. 2025. # 1 (181). P. 1-248 DOI... read »
«Narodoznavchi Zoshyty» 2017 year, issue 5 read »
«The Ethnology Notebooks» 2019 year, issue 4 read »

« 2025. # 3 (183)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2025. № 3 (183), 521—528

UDK 792.83:793.3(=161.2):008]355.01

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/

CHOREOGRAPHIC RITUALS IN THE AUTHOR‘S MODELS OF OSIP SOROKHTEI

BABII Nadiia

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9572-791X
  • DSc in Art Studies, Professor, 
  • Vasyl Stefanyc Precarpathian National University, 
  • 57, Shevchenko St., 76000, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: nadiia.babii@pnu.edu.ua

YAKYMECHKO Mykola

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3244-9451
  • Assistant Professor, 
  • Vasyl Stefanyc Precarpathian National University, 
  • 57, Shevchenko St., 76000, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: mykola.yakymechko@pnu.edu.ua

Abstract. The relevance of the study is determined by the analysis of the drawing «Arkan» by Osyp Sorohtey in a common discursive field with choreographic rituals and works of Ukrainian and world modernists.The object of the study is the artistic discourse around the image of dance. The subject is the interpretation of the dance topos in the small graphics of Osyp Sorokhtei. The greatest attention is paid to the drawing «Arkan» (1916), created by the artist during his time in the ranks of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, working in the military editorial office of the Press Quartet «Streletska Kadra». This work is considered in the context of modern culture and in the interconnection of the author’s personal experience of war and the experiences of other artists who at different times expressed their observations of social transformations and attitudes towards war and death through the thematisation of dance. Research methods. Historical, cultural and art historical methods are used to consider the specifics of dance interpretation in the aesthetic coordinates of art. A comparative analysis based on interdisciplinary studies, the search for common universals in literature, choreography, drama, painting, graphics, and cinema is also included. 

Result. The research has revealed that interest in choreographic reminiscences is growing in times of social upheaval. Pyrrhic dance, macabre dance, and domestic dance through works of art acquire the functions of communicators with the world. They are important choreographic images through which the themes of life and death are comprehended. It is proved that Osyp Sorokhtei’s drawing «The Arcana» (1916) should be considered as an expressive image of war in the context of the modernist appeal to rituals. In a large array of visual and literary works, it stands out for its tragic expressionist worldview and special rhythmicity, reproduced by means of drawing through the tempo of dancing boots and the long mute cry or moan of the characters. This is the first study in the national scientific discourse devoted to the analysis of the topos of dance in the interpretations of Osyp Sorokhtei.

Keywords: Osyp Sorokhtei, topos of dance in art, dance of death, modern culture, war.

Received 8.05.2025

REFERENCES

  • Rozhak-Lytvynenko, K. (2017). The artistic grouping of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen: the artists, traditions, genre and style features of the works. Dissertation for Candidate of Arts degree (PhD). Lviv National Academy of Arts [in Ukrainian].
  • Lukan, V. (2018). Usususy Osypa Sorokhteia. Kraieznavets Prykarpattia, 32, 52—54 [in Ukrainian].
  • Mackenbach, JP., & Dreier, RP. (2012). Dances of Death: macabre mirrors of an unequal society. Int J Public Health, 57 (6), 915—24. DOI: 10.1007/s00038-012-0381-x
  • Halchuk, О. (2021). The reminiscences of Salome’s dance and the dance macabre in authors’ models of the late 19th — early 20th centuries literature. Synopsis: text, context, media. 27 (3), 128—135. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.28925/2311-259x.2021.3.12021 [in Ukrainian].
  • Zubrytska, M. (1996). Ontologization of death in the works of Vasyl Stefanyk. Studies of integral culture. Thanatos, 1, 21—24 [in Ukrainian].
  • Henri, Matisse. The Dance. The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights (P. 69). New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999. 
  • Silver, L. (2011). Pieter Bruegel. New York; London. 
  • La Carmagnole (The Dance Around the Guillotine). Retrieved from: http://portlandartmuseum.us/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=24697;type=101 
  • Nechytalyuk, І. (2021). Corporeality in Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Project La Terra: Performativity Aspects. Pogranicza w literaturze i kulturze. Kontekst wschodnioeuropejsk. Bibliotekarz podlaski, 2, 123—136 [in Ukrainian].
  • Turianskyi, O. (1989). Beyond Limits of Pain. Kyiv [in Ukrainian].
  • Haivoronsky, M. (1916). Riflemen’s Songs and Trumpets.Zbruc. Retrieved from: https://zbruc.eu/node/49038 [in Ukrainian].
  • Fedortsiv, F. (1915). From the publisher. Shliakhy. Lviv [in Ukrainian].
  • Shandura, O. (1915). Salome. On the Margins of Wilde’s Drama (Instead of a Theatre Review)]. Shliakhy (Part І, pp.11—14). Lviv [in Ukrainian].
  • Ripko, O. (2008). Osyp Sorohtey’s Stations of the Cross. In: Osyp Sorokhtei (Pp. 5—22). Lviv [in Ukrainian].
  • (1971). Exhibition of works by caricaturist Osip Sorohtey, dedicated to his 80th birthday. Ivano-Frankivsk [in Ukra inian].
  • Figol, M. (1990). Osyp Sorokhtei. Exhibition catalog. Ivano-Frankivsk regional organization of the Ukrainian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments. Ivano-Frankivsk: Oblpoligrafvydav [in Ukrainian].
  • Osyp-Roman Sorokhtei. Retrieved from: https://sorokhtei.org.ua [in Ukrainian].
  • Relief with dancing warriors. Rome, Vatican Museums, Pius-Clementine Museum, Room of the Muses, 66 (Roma, Musei Vaticani, Museo Pio-Clementino, Sala delle muse). Retrieved from: https://ancientrome.ru/art/artworken/img.htm?id=5378 
  • Corvisier, A. (1998). Les danses macabres. Paris: QUE SAIS JE [in French].
  • Baudelaire, Ch. (1989). Poetry. Dnipro[in Ukrainian].
  • Kasprowicz, J. Salome. Retrieved from: https://poezja.org/wz/Jan_Kasprowicz/23339/Salome [in Polish].
  • (1915). In the cycle of events. Shliakhy (Pp. 33—36). Lviv [in Ukrainian].
Our authors
Yaroslav Taras. Head of Department, Professor, Doctor... read »
Oksana Kis. Senior scientific employee, candidate of... read »
Boliuk Oleh - kandidate of sciences in arts, Doctoral... read »
Roman Radovych. Researcher, Ph.D. in History. read »
Daily bread baking of ukrainians in the south-western ethnographical region at the late XIX to early XXI cc.
The paper has dealt with analytic study in prescriptions, signs, customs, methods, ways of selection, procurement and some peculiarities in usage of subsidiary means — water, firewood and leaves in bread baking. The final aim of the mentioned actions had been (and still is) selection of the means and ingredients fit, by their characteristics, for the backing of bread. The paper has demonstrated dependence of bread backing subsi­diary means criteria from the folk nutritional standards and world outlook stereotypes as well as from regional social and economic, natural and geographical factors and peculiarities of material culture.
Read »

Wax candle as ukrainian Christmas and epiphany ritualistic text
For the first time in native ethnology the article has brought some results of special study in sign functionality of a wax candle under the context of Ukrainian Christmas and Epiphany ritualistic text (ritualism of Christmas Eve, New Year, Epiphany Eve and Feast of Epiphany). The study has stated extremely high semiotic position of a wax candle as projection of Sun, mediator between the spheres of sacral and prophane elements, symbolic analogue of human existence, apotropy, cultural symbol re-establishing borders of acculturated space.
Read »

On field exploration of russian and belarusian ethnologists and etnolinguists in Ukrainian Polisia 1945—1980s
In the study based on a wide range of literary materials have been comprehensively characterised field research in Polisia of Ukraine, performed by Russian and Belarusian ethnologists during 1945—1980s as well as Moscow ethnolinguists and other researchers from ethnologic centres of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in the course of realization of Ethnolinguistic Atlas of Polisia program. Particular attention has been paid to geography, methods, themes and research results of scientific projects.
Read »

Maternity ritualism by volhynians in publications of the second half XIX to the early XXI cc.
In the article have been considered some basic landmarks for fixing and publication of ethnographic materials on the maternity rites of Volhynia with analytical study in ritual elements, their kinds and territories of origin. The article has also raised a problem of gaps in studies of maternity rites of Ukrainian historio-ethnographic Volhynia.
Read »