Contemporary media means of «refreshing» Ukrainian classics for chidlren

The essence of preserving classics in the literary education has been explained. Classics belongs to the ‘national literary canon’ which is regarded as an important tool for structuring, assimilating and preserving the past as an important cultural code linking different generations and allowing them to “speak the same language”. The necessity of media (re)interpretation of classics taking into account the features of contemporary generation of recipients has been substantiated. First of all it is caused by the current school reform (NUSh). The urgent need of renovation of this array of literary texts is determined by their obsolescence. About 90% of the “curriculum” writers described as “classics” were born in the 19th or early 20th century, in another state, in another geopolitical landscape); what is more, there were almost no children’s writers among them. All of the above led to the objective archaization of a part of the so-called classical narrative long-represented in the literary canon and to the loss of its communicative effectiveness.

Along with conceptual changes in didactics (i.e. teaching and interpretation methods), an effective way of updating classics (and hence preserving it in the literary canon) is its contemporary mediazation – publishing interpretation and film adaptation – “refreshing” of classical works – both at the textual (reduction, adaptation, para-text, comments etc.) and at the illustration level (modernization of classical images and their introduction into the modern visual context). Publishers and cartoonists managed to breathe new life into old works updating them to fit contemporary aesthetics in their publishing/media representation.

The media opportunities of updating Ukrainian classics by reprinting and film adaptation have been described. The several Ukrainian media projects (editions and cartoons) of the reinterparation of prominent literary works by Ivan Franko, Lesia Uk­rainka, Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Nechui-Levytskyi – that present two approaches to modernization and adaptation – soft (traditional) and radical – have been analysed in terms of their communicative effectiveness and availability.

Keywords: literary canon, classics of Ukrainian literature, reprints, film adaptation, young reader, graphic refreshing, text adaptation.

doi: 10.32403/0554-4866-2019-2-78-77-86