Journal of Danubian Studies and Research, Vol 8, No 2 (2018)

Abstract

The image of the Ukrainian Cossack is one of the brightest and most colorful figures among the characters in the national culture – literature, painting, song creation and other forms of art. Material for works about Cossacks was the richest folk art – songs, tales, thoughts. The Cossacks are idealized in the epic, they are as heroes, strong and fearless. The image of the Ukrainian Cossacks is romanticized, but often there is a description of their franticness, recklessness, drunkenness and rudeness. Such contradictory features are presented in the descriptions of Ukrainian Cossacks. A special attitude of the Cossacks to the lyrical theme, meditation, dreams of will, homeland, glorious military campaigns. This topic is related to the image of the Kobzar, the custodian and singer of the cherished Cossack thoughts and dreams. In the famous Ukrainian song “I am watching the sky ...” – there is a piercing melancholy and at the same time an elevation of the spiritually hungry and upwardly striving soul of the Cossack. The idealization of the image of the Ukrainian Cossack can be clearly traced both in folk art and in classical historical and literary images. The Art is a mean of the senses development. To grow a healthy national identity is the noble task of every kind of art.