Vyacheslav Medvid's notebook as a "mirror" of the artist's development

Abstract

The article analyses the content of the notebook of the famous Ukrainian writer Vyacheslav Medvid (born in  1951), in  which the  author made notes during 1973–1975, while in  the  army service and working in  the  Transcarpathian Children’s Library. The  desire to  obtain alternative information, to assimilate the achievements of different cultures was manifested in the recordings of multilingual fragments that the writer tried to study (Hungarian, Georgian, Armenian). In the notebook, in addition to  a  small share of  household records, there are individual lyrical works, fragments of  poems and prose literary texts. Vyacheslav Medvid records the  names of  the  authors and their works, which must be read, highlighting the “Americans” W. Faulkner, E. Hemingway, J. D. Salinger, H. D. Thoreau. Attention is  drawn to  fragments in  which the  writer formulates his own psychoanalytic feelings, experiences, generalizes them, combining subconscious aspirations, sexual life with artistic creativity as their sublimation.

Lyrical and epic texts show that the main motifs, images, and narrative features of Vyacheslav Medvid’s works were formed during his stay in Uzhhorod and the army ranks, long before the official publication of the first collection. Likewise, during these years, the writer, after hesitation, finally chooses the path of a professional writer. Using the example of different versions of texts in poetry, prose and essays, it is possible to trace how the skill of narration, the ability to reproduce indirectly and in detail the inner world of the character, is honed.