The Literary Heritage of Petro Franko: in search of the Creative Self

This article focuses on literary heritage of Petro Franko (1890–1941?), the youngest son of Ivan and Olha Franko, examined in the context of the Ukrainian literary process of the first half of the 20^th century.

The aim of the research is to reveal the creative personality of Petro Franko as an original writer and also as a representative of Franko literary dynasty who continued and preserved the traditions of his renowned father.

The research methodology is based on historical and documentary (particularly archival) researches and uses biographical, bibliographic, cultural, historical, genealogical, and stylistic approaches.

The academic novelty of the study consists in the fact that this is the first systematic comprehension of the literary heritage of Petro Franko in the Ukrainian literature. For the first time in academic researches, the concept of Frankos Literary Dynasty is introduced in academic researches, justified, and legitimised.

On the basis of the analysis of Petro Franko’s works from the first attempts to the Kolomyian period (1922–1930), when his writing talent was most fully revealed – conclusions were made about the main features of his literary work, specifically: about the variety of genres and themes; about the preference for heroic and adventure-type creation of characters and plots; about the high degree of autobiography; about the historic and patriotic themes and nation-building focus; about vitalism, optimism, ‘masculinity’ as the psycho-emotional dominant of the artistic world; and about the ‘Jack-Londonian’ stylistics and the strong influence of foreign belles-lettres fiction which was super trending at the time.

The genre palette of Petro Franko’s literary work – primarily as a novelist and playwright—includes historical stories; stories for children and youth; adventure stories; psychological novels; fictionalised memoirs and memories; dramatic fantasy works for children’s theatres, comedies etc. In addition to the above, standalone editions of Petro Franko’s short stories were also published: Pachkar Demko and Other Stories (Lviv, 1924) and Diadko Shkiper (Kolomyia, 1930). The artistic Frankiana occupies a special place in the author’s heritage – particularly, works created in the ‘refinement and alteration’ format which are an expression of literary hypertextuality.