Модус музыки в эссеистике Юрия Андруховича (по материалам сборника «Здесь похоронен Фантомас»)

Abstract

In the article the musical modus in Yuri Anrukovych’s collection of essays „Fantomas is buries here” is analysed. Based on the fact that modus is „a type of conscience, within the borders of which the statement’s sense is spoken out”, the musical imagery in the book was decided to be analysed. It is proven that the collection is devoted to two main topics – music and politics, as examples of harmony and disharmony. Surely the main character aims for harmony, and as a result finds it everywhere: in songs during celebratory meals, in memories about concerts of musical bands, in stories about festivals, in special and coincidental meetings, in different creative activities – poetry, prose writing, translations, criticism, music. Instead the harmony is often ruined by low-quality Russian pop-music, cynicism and arrogance of Ukrainian politicians, false and loud promises that come from TV screens. The author directly claims that good music has to counteract unfairness, be a rebellion, protest, disagreement. The author’s love for music, as it can be assumed from the book „Fantomas is buried here”, has philosophic, aesthetically-perceptive roots, as if he modernises Platonov’s idea about the fact that music is a way of harmonising a person with oneself and the society in general. Many essays in the book are short lecture-sketches with interesting comments of the author about modern musicians and the ones from the past. The author acts as a great expert in modern European and American pop-culture, strict critic of modern Ukrainian and Russian pop-culture, music lover, artist that can draw interesting parallels between musical and literary works. Sometimes there is an impression that he, while being an artist that subtly feels the word, aims to get rid of mundane life’s burden with the use of music. He is at pain when music serves the role of pure entertainment, while promoting bad taste and values that are far from moral norms in a civilized society. Music encourages the author to make historical and ethnographic assumptions. To conclude, the collection of works „Fantomas is buried here” showcases Yuri Andrukhovych not only as a political expert tired of politics and fatality but also as a wonderful musical critic who found his own – writer’s – way of interpreting musical art. His original manner to verbalise sound features and inner sense of musical works, imaginary-sensible approach based not on rational but rather on emotional sense of beauty and ugliness, exceptional observance and impressionability of his perception of the world have evidenced a unique level of essay mastery. It is partially due to his ability to tell about painful problems of our reality not in categorical and dogmatic way, but through modern and bygone art with the use of artistic methods. As a result, in the collection of works „Fantomas is buried here” the modern reality is presented in a different light: problems that seemed to be unsolvable, get a new solution vector, modern people that move today’s society and give everyone a direction, are perceived ironically and artistically protuberant, the reader who is already tired of negativity, becomes positive thanks to associative reading and immense artistic accents, while having an opportunity to arrange them according to their personal preferences, and to become a part of this thinking process. Therefore, we can claim that the author’s goal in this book – „to serve as a mover of critical thinking” – is achieved.