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« 2026. # 2 (188)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2026. № 2 (188), 536—547

UDK [398.8(=161.2):801.81:091+94(100).355.01(477.4)”1914/1918”]:140.8 В.О. Геринович (091)

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/

  • Received: 22.03.2026
  • Accepted: 26.03.2026
  • Published: ??.??.2026

FOLKLORE OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN THE RECORDS OF VOLODYMYR GERYNOVYCH: THE TIMELESS MEANINGS OF TRADITIONAL TEXTS

KUZMENKO Oksana

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0512-6388
  • Doctor of Science in Philology (Dr.Hab. in Folklore Studies),
  • Senior Scholar, Leading Research Associate 
  • of the Department of Social Anthropology, The Ethnology Institute,
  • National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: е-mail: kuzmenko.oksana@gmail.com

Abstract. The article, based on the material of V. Gerynovich’s field notes made during World War I, analyzes the main traditional folklore themes and motifs in connection with their modernist images, which shaped the language tension of the new war era and the timelessness of military cultural forms of the «long twentieth century». Professor Volodymyr Gerynovych (1883—1949) — an Active member of the Shevchenko Scientific Society and a Doctor of Historical and Geographical Sciences. The scientific novelty of the article is the coverage of the person of V. Gerynovych from an unknown perspective as a recorder of war folklore.

The purpose of the investigation is to emphasize the peculiarities of the cultural and folkloristic activity of the Galician intelligentsia, which was organized by V. Hnatiuk, as well as to introduce six texts of folklore innovations that were included in the metanarrative of the Great War into the broader socio-cultural discourse. The object of the research is song texts, which come from the collection of the Scientific Archival Funds of Manuscripts and Phonographic Recordings of the M.T. Rylsky Institute of Art History, Folklore and Ethnology of the NAS of Ukraine (Kyiv). The subject of the research is the conceptual basis of lyric-epic songs, which reflect the cultural worldview and value patterns of Ukrainian people from Galicia in the first half of the XXth. The subject of the anthropocentric optics aimed at military culture is primarily a person from the ranks of Ukrainian soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian Army (zhovnir). 

The analytical aspect includes the issue of identifying the feelings and meanings of creation, on which a warrior relies in times of crisis, namely: on God’s mercy, justice, loyalty to the oath, great love for family, children, native land and Ukraine, respect for fellow soldiers. The relevance of the article is due to the need to use authentic folklore material and its context for deeper studies of the genesis and typology of the humanistic view of the world in song-poetic novelties of modern military history of Ukraine.

The methodological basis is biographical, historical-typological and conceptual methods, as well as on the principles of repeatability and productivity of innovations, as the foundations of the repeatability of tradition, which is revealed in folklore texts.

Keywords: Volodymyr Gerynovych, manuscript, First World War, modern warfare, war folklore, lyric-epic text, tradition, sence, timelessness.

REFERENCES

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