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The article deals with the notion «sanatorium text» implementation in the context of Lesya Ukrainka’s literary works. A severe illness and the necessity of regular curing in the treatment facilities over a lifetime have influenced the numerous texts biographical background with appropriate thematic area, comprising both epistolary genre (predominantly) and literary texts (in general). The article’s objective is to reconstruct the «sanatorium text» phenomenon in the Lesya Ukrainka’s epistolary and literary heritage. Author’s letters are displaying the formation of the illness discursive space, the reader can notice how some treatment process episodes have penetrated into the identity’s auto-narration. Theoretical framework of the given paper consists of «sanatorium text» concept (E. Gerlt) and «heterotopia» theory (M. Fuko). The research’s methodology is also supplemented by the elements of narratological and biographical methods. Results of the study. Experience and surveillance, gained in the course of socalled «travels for health» is an essential part of Lesya Ukrainka’s biography. Correspondence fragments, referring to illnesses, reflect the lifestyle under the disease conditions. Illness generates around the patient a kind of «heterotopic points» (M. Fuko) network, denying the outer worlds’ rules, commonly accepted in the noillnesses society, activates the alienation effect from earlier accustomed biography places. A hospital, a sanatorium, a villa, full of health-resort visitors in the medical and health-improving location, all these locuses are associated with peculiar space dimension use and presuppose certain patterns of behavior. The article analyzes, namely, Lesya Ukrainka’s short story «The city of sorrow». The story shows the separation process of the mentally ill people from the rest of the world, their alienation in the timeless and no-name space. Isolation of mentally sick became a kind of the violent medical practice, where a doctor is a person who sets behavioral norms. Day-to-day existence is determined by the schedule, imposed by medical staff. Conclusions. There is not any sanatorium reality description in the Lesya Ukrainka’s literary texts, where sanatorium topos is used; it is rather meant as starting point for contemplations about the human being and their surroundings. Sanatorium topos with its «illnesses and death» connotations are often symbolically correlated with Hades, land of the dead. It is a peculiar feature of Lesya Ukrainka’s works. City of sorrow landscapes are reminding the narrator Dante’s places, immersed in pain. |
