zhodani@yandex.ua

Abstract

In modern art writers very often choose not only traditional ways to express their emotions and thoughts. Some­times they use more than one secondary modeling system (according to terms by the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics). There are a lot of words which pertain to the phenomenon of synthesis of some arts (intermediality, heteromediality, heteroperceptuality, creolization, interaction of arts and so on), but to my mind, if we use the methodology of semiotic, the best of them is the term of the Polish researcher Marta Kaźmierczak “polisemi­oticity” which has a parallel with intersemioticity.

This thesis is dedicated to synthesis of literature and graphic arts in visual poetry by a Ukrainian author Viktor Zhenchenko (books “Visual Poetry” (2000) and “Thirst for Two People” (2001)). A lot of his works are about tragic events in the Ukrainian history such as Kolyma, famishment, genocide, Gulag, prohibition of the Ukrain­ian language, extirpation of the best Ukrainian writers, painters, scholars and other people of culture and sci­ence.

Visual poetry by Viktor Zhenchenko is full of verbal and graphic symbols which supplement each other and create the new composite whole. In his works we can see many Ukrainian and international symbols, such as wing, gallows, boots, labyrinth, square, circle, candle, sabres, swallows and so on.

The separate part of the book “Thirst for Two People” is the alphabet for adults where each letter is associated with some important idea-symbol.

Visual poetry by Viktor Zhenchenko consists of different codes and the author is permanently looking for new and original forms of this synthesis of two secondary modeling systems. His works are characterized by graphic imagery, non-linearity of perception and versatility of significance which is inherent to the symbol.

In modern art writers very often choose not only traditional ways to express their emotions and thoughts. Sometimes they use more than one secondary modeling system (according to terms by the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics).

There are a lot of terms which pertain to the phenomenon of a synthesis of some arts. The formation of these words is reflected in the table below.

Table 1: Formation of terms which pertain to the phenomenon of synthesis of arts.

In the table you can see that there are different roots (semiotic, media, mode, code, sense, percept) and different prefixes by Latin and Greek origin (multi-, poli-, inter-, hetero-) from which scholars coin new words that name the phenomenon of synthesis of some arts. To my mind, such roots as “media”, “mode”, “sense”, or “percept” are too general and relate to other subjects. For example, “media” is associated with mass media, “sense” and “percept” – with psychology, “creolization” – with anthropology, “code” – with the theory of information, and only the root “semiotics”, to my mind, is the most relevant because it also refers to the methodology of semiotics.

The prefix “hetero-” means “other”, that is why we cannot use it to name a synthesis of arts. The prefix “inter-” means “between” and it can be used when we talk about the translation from one art to another. The prefixes “multi-” and “poli-” have the same meaning “much, many” and we can use them to write about a synthesis of arts. That is why I think that the most specific terms for the phenomenon of a synthesis of arts when using the methodology of semiotics are “multisemioticity” and “polisemioticity”.

Visual poetry is one of the forms of such phenomenon. It has an ancient tradition in Ukraine, in particular in baroque epoch. But in the XX century, when visual poetry was very popular all over the world, this form of art was suppressed in the USSR as formalism. For example, Viktor Zhenchenko remembers how a KGB agent threatened him to deport to the Kolyma region for his 3 visual poems published in a newspaper (Moisiyenko 2001: 19). That is why only now visual poetry in Ukraine is becoming very popular.

This paper is dedicated to the synthesis of literature and graphic arts in visual poetry by the Ukrainian author Viktor Zhenchenko. He is a famous opera singer (bass), poet and translator. He has written 11 collections of poetry, and two of them consist of visual poetry: Visual poetry (2000) and Thirst for two people (2001) books. His son, Igor Zhenchenko, is a graphic artist, who helped his father to draw the visual part of the poetries in the above-mentioned poetry collections.

The basic themes of the analyzed books are tragic events in the Ukrainian history, such as Kolyma camps, famishment, genocide, Gulag, the prohibition of the Ukrainian language, repressions of the best Ukrainian writers, painters, and scholars.

One of the famous visual poetries by Viktor Zhenchenko is the “Tragedy” poem. It describes a Gulag labor (in fact, concentration) camp with especially hard conditions of life and work which was situated at the Kolyma, a region in the Russian Far East. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn called it “the pole of cold and cruelty” because in the years of mass repressions (1932–1954) near one million people were killed there, and a lot of them were Ukrainians. For instance, the killed victims included Mykhailo Drai-Khmara (a Ukrainian famous writer and professor who knew 19 languages). Therefore, for Ukraine Kolyma became the symbol of cruel treatment, coldness, death, and extirpation of the best Ukrainian people.

In visual poem by Viktor Zhenchenko, we can see the word “Kolyma” which looks like a barrack because of its grey uneven surface. The barbed wire is around this word. It symbolizes the pain of the prisoners who suffered mainly for their love to Ukraine like Jesus suffered for all people. Under the visual part of poem we can read the text: “Snows, barracks, wire, darkness... And cry of millions people: ‘Mother! Mo...’” In Siberia the winter continues up to 8 months with a lot of snowfalls, strong winds and the temperature falling down to 60 degrees below zero. Thus, the people who came back from Kolyma remember only snows, barracks, barbed wire and darkness. To my mind, here darkness also means a victory of evil, despair and hopelessness. The culmination of this visual poem is the torn off word “Mother”, which means tearing off lives of millions of people.

Another work dedicated to this theme is “The Telegram to Swallows”, in which we can see a telegraph pole and five swallows near it. Under the wires, we can read the text: “Mordovia stains with blood FS Vasyl Stus is crucified as Jesus FS No cries, no repentances FS This is not people, but Herod FS”. (Here I use my own abbreviation “FS” from English words “full stop” to reproduce the style of telegram as it was done in the Ukrainian text by the author.)

Mordovia is a Russian republic, in which a maximum-security labor camps were located, too. In 1980-s, almost all the members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group who had been fighting against violations of human rights were prisoners of this camp. One of them was Vasyl Stus, a talented writer, who was nominated to the Nobel Prize (According to some sources, in 1984 The International Committee for Awarding the Literary Nobel Prize to Vasyl Stus in 1986 was founded in Toronto. In conformity with other sources, H. Bell nominated him in 1985). However, the Soviet Union leaders did not want to have any Ukrainian Nobel prize-winners. They knew that this Prize is awarded to alive people only. That is why, according to the memoirs of prisoners, Vasyl Stus died in very mysterious circumstances. All of his prisoner friends think that he was killed because of the Nobel Prize prospect (Ovsiyenko 2011).

Vasyl Stus was a political prisoner in Mordovia during 7 years, but he died in a camp in Perm region. I think that Viktor Zhenchenko use here the word “Mordovia”, firstly, because of Stus’s lost health there and, secondly, because of the consonance between the words Мордовія and мордувати (which translates as ‘torture’) in the Ukrainian language. In such way he wanted to come into notice to death of Vasyl Stus as a result of tortures. That confirms the following line of the poem: “Vasyl Stus is crucified as Jesus FS”. The telegraph pole looks like the cross which Jesus was crucified on. Here we can see again a parallel between the Ukrainian intellectuals and Jesus Christ. This story continues in the last sentence where the author compares Russian nation with Herod because of the lack of repentances for their actions.

Let us turn to the picture of visual poem. We can see five swallows there. According to dictionaries of symbols and signs, a swallow is connected with Jesus Christ (Adamchyk 2006: 97) and it symbolizes the Resurrection (Roshal 2005: 820). It is a pure bird (Voitovych 2005: 408), in contrast to evil raven (Voitovych 2005: 408) whose silhouette we can see at the end of the broken wires. The broken wires symbolize here the broken lives of the Ukrainian political prisoners. Three ravens on the old version of this visual poem (book Visual Poetry, 2000) are the confirmation that it is not only an illusion. This opinion can also be supported with the Ukrainian abbreviation КР (from word крапка – ‘full stop’), which is so consonant with the Ukrainian raven’s caw кар ‘kahr’. In the Ukrainian folk ballads a cawing raven always foretells the death of the Cossack (Cossacks were free warriors in the territory of Ukraine in XV–XVIII centuries who protected their lands from enemies. Cossacks have been national heroes for Ukrainian people. There are a lot of songs, ballads and stories about them.). That’s why in our country raven is a bad bird that brings death, tears and evil (Talanchuk 2002: 336–341). Under the flying ravens, we can see the grave. Comparing old and new versions of visual poem we can draw a conclusion that the author evolves from sullen and black work (grave, cross, three big black ravens and only three small swallows) to more positive and lighter work. In the new version of visual poem we cannot see any more the grave and big black ravens and the number of swallows increases from 3 to 5. To my mind, in such way the author tries to show the win of good under the evil.

The next visual poem “Target” continues the theme of the difficult fate of a poet. We can see the target where numerals are substituted with the following words: “The word of poet, and heart, and body were always under the battle sight”. Besides that on the target we can read the surnames of poets who were killed. In the table there are names, ages and reasons of death of each writer from this visual poem.

Table 2: Reason and age of death of poets from the visual poem “Target”.

As we can see, all the mentioned Ukrainian poets were killed by Soviet (7 people) and German (2 people) totalitarian systems. For example, officially Vasyl Stus and Jevgen Pluzhnyk died in the Soviet labor (in fact, concentration) camps. Mykhailo Drai-Khmara, Vasyl Symonenko, Mykhail Semenko, Mykola Zerov, and Mykola Voronyj were killed by the KGB. Oleg Olzhych and Olena Teliga were killed by the Gestapo. All of them were killed for their Ukrainian position.

Some foreign poets, such as Spanish Federico Garcia Lorca, English Lord Byron, Chilean Viktor Jara, and Tatar Mussa Jalil, also became victims of their political convictions.

For comparison, Viktor Zhenchenko adds some Russian poets. Aleksandr Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov were killed in a duel. The reason of death of Sergei Jesenin was a suicide.

Of course, this poem is about the difficult fate of a poet in general, but the author dedicated particular attention to the difficult fate of Ukrainian poets who became victims of political repressions.

In the visual poem on the right side of the target we can see a trace from the shot with the question mark. In this way Viktor Zhenchenko tries to ask who will be the next victim of the totalitarian system. Now we can already answer this question. The next victim became the poet and musician Ivan Panteleiev who was killed on 20^th of February 2014 in Kyiv (he was 32 years old and in his body 7 bullets were found).

The visual poem “To eat” is dedicated to famishment in 1932–1933, which was organized by Stalin and other leaders of Soviet Union. During these 2 years more than 3 million people died in Ukraine.

In Ukrainian language, the word їсти (‘to eat’) begins with letter “Ї”, which is represented by the author as a gravestone with two death's heads. On the gravestone we can read the text: “This letter like the monument of sorrow is standing opposite us. Opposite... Innocent killed in the village and in the city asked only about one: To eat... to eat... to eat... to eat... to eat... to eat... to eat... to eat... to eat... to eat... to eat... to eat... to eat... to eat... to eat...”.

Letter “Ї” became the symbol of the Ukrainian language, culture and nation, because it is unique – it is not present in any other language using Cyrillic alphabet. For those who saw the visual poem by Viktor Zhenchenko “To eat”, it became also a symbol of the biggest Ukrainian tragedies – the famishment in 1932–1933. That is why in Ukraine in the city Rivne in 2013 was put the monument to this letter.

The other visual poem which continues the theme of Ukrainian language is “Gibbet”. We can see the gibbet with the following text on it “This gibbet is new. Only words are hanging on it. Only words” and the word “LANGUAGE” under the noose.

This poem sends us back to XVIII–XX centuries when the Ukrainian language was forbidden by Russian and Soviet Union leaders. For example, in 1720 tsar Petro I issued the decree to prohibit printing of Ukrainian books. In 1763, tsarina Kateryna II issued the decree prohibiting the teaching in Ukrainian language in Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. In 1876, Oleksandr II signed Emsky decree which prohibited the printing and importing the Ukrainian books, producing Ukrainian plays, and teaching in the Ukrainian language in schools. There were many of such orders, decrees and acts.

At that time even some words were forbidden, so that the phrases had to have Russian forms, and the whole Ukrainian language had to be similar to Russian as much as possible. By that time, some Ukrainian words had already been forgotten. This poem tells us about such killed words. The language consists of words and after the deaths of words comes the death of the whole language. The shade of this killed Ukrainian language we can see under the noose.

Another visual poem is “Ancient experience”. The work consists of the picture of high boots and the following text: “– Who realizes revolutions? – Boots. – Who balances pro and contra? – Boots. – Whose idea is to occupy the world? – Boots.”

The boots in the picture are quite like tarpaulin boots which are used mainly in the army. These boots have eyes, a nose and a big mouth with teeth. In the dictionary of symbols and signs teeth are an image of aggressiveness and strength (Adamchyk 2006: 46). In Greek mythology soldiers of Jason grew from a dragon’s teeth. A mouth is linked with taking food and therefore with destruction as well. As an organ which devours food, a mouth can be connected with power (Adamchyk 2006: 171). In the visual poem, one tarpaulin boot is turned left. To my mind, it was done because the author wanted to pay attention to a big mouth and big teeth.

The symbolism of boots which personify the idea of power and holding (Adamchyk 2006: 171) may be confirmation of this thought. So, Viktor Zhenchenko tries to tell us that from ancient times and to our civilized time the force incarnated in an army governs this world. Not intellect, but only force.

The visual poem “Stamp of chauvinist” also concerns our history when the words “independence”, “nationhood”, “freedom”, “sovereignty” and “indivisibility” were forbidden. People who drew attention to these ideas were killed or imprisoned. Such fate was common for most Ukrainian intellectuals. Among them there were a lot of writers and professors, actors and scientists, and many others.

Russian chauvinists are still afraid of these words in our days. They are ready to seal stamp “NO” on every one of these ideas. Of course, a stamp is a symbol of power (Adamchyk 2006: 147), and in this context we understand that the author had in mind the most influential chauvinists, perhaps the leaders of Russia. Besides that in the picture we can see the road sign “Stop!” which also, in their opinions, has to stop the movement of Ukraine in this direction.

The following two visual poetries “Moan” and “Fate” are dedicated to the passivity of contemporary Ukrainians who have forgotten about the glory and heroic deeds of their forefathers. “Among thirsty steppes grey-haired glory moans during centuries, calling her replete, sleepy contemporaries.” This text is written on the four sabres which create the Ukrainian letter “C”. In the original text every word in this poem begins with this letter constructing alliteration: “Серед спраглих степів/Стогне століттями сива слава/Скликаючи своїх ситих/Сонних сучасників”.

For Ukrainians, steppe (a big plain without forests) is a symbol of freedom and independence because Zaporizka Sich was built just there. It was a military-administrative organization of the Zaporizhian Cossack Host in XVI–XVIII centuries in the central part of Ukraine. It was the place free from tsars, masters and other people who enslaved everyone. But it was also a dangerous place because of its natural unprotected state (I mean the open plain) and the necessity to defend the Cossack territories with sabres in hands. The glory of the victories over enemies branched forth on the whole Ukraine. But now it is old grey-haired glory because in our days Ukrainians are complacent and sleepy. They do not want to fight for their freedom. That’s why the glory moans when it sees how contemporaries turn to the status of slave. It has been continuing for 3 centuries: since 1775, when Russian tsarina Kateryna II ruined Zaporizka Sich. From that time Ukraine no more had such a powerful army. (I want to remind that this poem was written in 2000–2001 before the Orange revolution in 2004 and the Revolution of Dignity in 2014).

The visual poem “Fate” continues this theme. In the picture we can see the Ukrainian big letter “P”, which begins the word раб (‘slave’), and the man who embosoms legs of his master. Besides that there is the following text: “Oh, God! Even new age can’t throw out slave from us.” After the long supremacy of Russian state Ukrainian free people begin to teach how to serve the tsar and this lesson lasted during 3 centuries. That is why to this time some Ukrainians find tsar, because they got used to be slaves. Viktor Zhenchenko dispraises these slavish habits of contemporaries.

The visual poem “Immortality of Ravel” is dedicated to bolero. It is the Spanish folk dance which is doing mainly by couple. This is a very passionate dance with graceful movements, slowing steps, significant pauses, and expression of postures.

The most popular bolero was written for ballet by French composer Maurice Ravel in 1928. It is so famous that Viktor Zhenchenko writes about Ravel’s immortality because of this work. The visual poem consists of word “Bolero” in which each letter is placed not straightly and looks like scheme of steps by dancer. The last step develops into the turning. Inside of letter “O” we can read such text: “Bolero is the dance, the torment, the circle, from which you will never get out. It turns you and turns. And you no more want to turn in this lenten and protocol being from this magic circle”.

The circle is a symbol of infinity, perfection and the absolute (Sheinina 2003: 31) and here it emphasizes the perfection of Ravel’s music. Besides one of the most popular stagings is the production of ballet by Maurice Bejart in which the principal dancer dances on the big round dais. Maybe just that staging inspires Viktor Zhenchenko to use the symbol of circle in his poem.

Conclusions. The visual poetry by Viktor Zhenchenko is full of verbal and graphic symbols which supplement each other and create the new composite whole. In his works we can see many Ukrainian and international symbols, such as the cross, circle, grave, gibbet, boots, sabres, swallows, ravens, teeth, mouth, stamp, and others. Some geographical objects (like Kolyma, Mordovia) and persons (like Jesus Christ, Vasyl Stus) also became symbols in his visual poetries. Even the letters Viktor Zhenchenko uses for this aim. We could see Ukrainian letters “Ї”, “С” and “Р” in such role. The poetries with these letters were taken from the separate part of the book “The alphabet for adults” where each letter is associated with some important idea-symbol.

The visual poetry by Viktor Zhenchenko consists of different codes and the author is permanently looking for new and original forms of synthesis of two secondary modeling systems – literature and graphic arts.

References

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MOISIYENKO, Anatoliy. 2001. Tradytsiyi modernu i modern tradytsiy [Traditions of modern and modern of traditions]. Kyiv, Uzhgorod: Patent.

OVSIYENKO, Vasyl. 2011. Sertse, samogubstvo chy vbyvstvo? Yak zagynuv Vasyl Stus [Heart, suicide or murder? How did Vasyl Stus die]. http://www.istpravda.com.ua/articles/2011/09/4/53998/ (last accessed: 6 December 2014).

ROSHAL, Viktoriya (comp.). 2005. Entsiklopedia simvolov [Encyclopedia of symbols]. Мoskva: АSТ; Sankt-Peterburg: Sova.

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