Theoretical seminar of Rostyslav Semkiv “History of Ukrainian literature: how do we imagine it?”

As part of the study of the discipline “History of Ukrainian Literature”, students of the OPP “Secondary Education. Ukrainian Language and Literature” on December 8, 2023 took part in the theoretical seminar of literary critic Rostislav Semkiv “History of Ukrainian literature: how do we imagine it?”. Analyzing the approaches to building a complete history of literature by M. Hrushevsky, S. Yefremov, D. Chizhevsky, H. Grabovich, M. Brynikh, Rostislav Semkiv spoke about the problems of the criterion by which all literary phenomena could be classified, about the hyper-popularity of individual poets who chosen by readers, not literary experts (such as Volodymyr Sosyura, Vasyl Symonenko, Lina Kostenko), the possibility of educating the modern reader through advertising.

The urgent need to reload and unload the school curriculum on Ukrainian literature was highlighted at the seminar. According to Rostislav Semkiv, in order to develop the concept of national literature, it is necessary to define a certain number of books that will be read by everyone. And this, in turn, actualizes the issue of the national canon, where there will be names with which everyone will agree, as well as the principles of selectivity of works for the canon, because many works may end up outside the canon due to an ideological sticker.

The seminar was also attended by those seeking education under the OPP “Secondary education. English language and literature and a second foreign language”, because the theoretical principles voiced at the seminar are quite applicable to the history of foreign literature as well.

Rostislav Semkiv – literary critic, critic, translator, publicist, publisher. Associate Professor of the Department of Literary Studies of the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” and director of the Smoloskip publishing house. Interned at Harvard University, at the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, at the Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information. Member of the jury “BBC Book of the Year – 2012”. Member of the Ukrainian PEN Club. The author of the books “How the classics were written”, “How to read the classics”, and “Adventures of Ukrainian literature (from romanticism to postmodernism)”.