Tkanie świata i kreowanie Losu w Kasandrze Łesi Ukrainki

Abstract

The article presents a new perspective on a classic dramatic text of early 20th-century Ukrainian literature – the dramatic poem Cassandra (1907) by the outstanding Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka. Referring to Mircea Eliade’s philosophical anthropology and the ideas of Ukrainian ethnology, the authors propose reading Lesia Ukrainka’s drama Cassandra as a textual staging of weaving fate / “creating a family”. This interpretation is based on the craft processes of wool processing, spinning, weaving, decoration and related rituals, which are widely presented in the work as a kind of background. Important mythological and folkloric structures include the “spinning moon”, the ‘great wedding’ and funeral rites as rites of passage, as well as “sewing” / the inscription of Destiny. In the authors’ interpretation, Cassandra appears not only as a dramatic work about the fatalism of history, but also as a profound metatextual reflection by Lesia Ukrainka herself on the role of the artist-prophet, whose voice, like that of a priestess, transcends the boundaries of time and culture, taking root in collective experience and appealing to the reader’s inner transformation. In this way, the idea of returning to the perception of “mythological knowledge” as an organic component of creative activity, which has practical value, is justified.