Mimesis and Poiesis in the Formation of the Rural Subject Environment of the 20th Century on the Slavic-Roman Border of Ukraine

The purpose of the article is to analyse the role of mimesis and poiesis in the formation of artistic and design components of the rural subject environment of the 20th century on the Slavic-Roman border of Ukraine. The research methodology is based on the following methods: systematic and analytical, art studies, comparative and historical. The author of the article applies the systematic and analytical method to systematise the concepts of mimesis and poiesis in the history of the formation of the design of the subject environment. The art studies method is used to determine the features of cultural, ethnic, and artistic identification of the inhabitants of the Slavic-Roman border area, the comparative and historical method is applied to specify the place of mimesis and poiesis in the historical retrospective of the 20th century on the Slavic-Roman border of Ukraine. The scientific novelty of the research consists in determining the scientific concepts of mimesis and poiesis in the context of This is an open access journal, and all published articles are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. both ethnography and local history, as well as the sphere of design and art; substantiating the level of imitation and creativity in the material life of the border of the Slavic and Roman worlds in the territory of South-Western Ukraine. Conclusions. The article demonstrates that mimesis and poiesis are concepts that are dynamically developing in the context of ethnographic development of ethnic border regions of Ukraine. In the process of forming a rural subject environment, residents of traditional culture tend to imitate (mimesis). At the same time, the entry of innovation into everyday life leaves room for creativity and something new (poiesis). How closely they are intertwined depends not only on the region or locality, but also on the individual rural family — Ukrainian, Romanian or mixed. It is revealed that our country was not characterised by political borders, because the borders in the middle of the 20th century were laid without taking into account the ethnic factor and preference was given to ideological and security principles. The article analyses the general trends of striving for imitation and creativity in the formation of the design of the subject environment on the Ukrainian border using the example of the Ukrainian-Romanian (Bukovyna, Transcarpathia) and Ukrainian-Moldovan (Podillia, Odesa, Bessarabia) borders. The special features of cultural, ethnic, and artistic identification of the inhabitants of the Slavic-Roman border region are outlined: Orthodox religion and the use of Ukrainian and Romanian languages in everyday life. The mimesis of this situation is that language and art traditionally distinguished Ukrainians from Moldovans and Romanians (but religion united these ethnic groups). The poiesis, obviously, consists in the fact that one of the strongest factors of national identity in this region is the design of the subject environment, which was formed under the influence of both geography (the Carpathians, forest-steppe, steppe, proximity to the sea), and the understanding of spiritual development and economic factors by each ethnic group. It is proved that the depicted and considered phenomena on the Ukrainian border with Romania and Moldova reflect in detail the trends inherent in most similar territories of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as express sufficient diversification and ambiguity of the evolution of ethnic communities in the conditions of the border region, especially when it comes to peoples of different historical past — Slavic and Roman.