Traditions that need to be preserved (non-academic notes)

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to define and consider the main values of philological culture, which should determine the continuity and preservation of literary studies of its scientific specificity. Results. Literary criticism, like literature, faces a threat in a situation of war: honestly reacting to the absolute outrage against humanitarian values that is taking place, it either turns into a weapon – that is, in fact, journalism, or becomes an ornament of a difficult life, fun, a rest from the hardships of life. In order to avoid turning science into journalism, one must first of all remember the ontological nature of literature. А particular study needs to combine the sense of the work’s openness to the historical process with the idea of a literary work as an utterance of a fundamentally different person. And in this logic, the culture of literary analysis is to imagine a literary work as a universe, each of whose components is conceived only through connection with other, extraordinary elements, and through this connection and necessity finds its place in this universe. This culture implies the reactualisation of Ukrainian formalism. It is the formalists who focus on the word, its semantics and meaning, the word as an element of artistic form, which creates a work of art from an individual expression. Scientific novelty. The challenges faced by wartime literary criticism are formulated, and ways of possible response to these challenges are identified, including the idea of a literary work as an integral being; the presumption of misunderstanding - a fundamental rejection of any bias, of the idea of what a literary work should be like, how this author was supposed to depict a particular fragment of reality; reactualisation of the precepts of formalism – and, above all, Ukrainian formalism. Practical value. The ideas presented in this paper can be used as a basis for one's own reflections, and in the future, the main provisions can be included in special courses on the contemporary cultural situation.