Beauty, Truth, and Sincerity. Lesja Ukrajinka and the Responsibility of Art Between Aestheticism and the Pursuit of Authenticity

Abstract

In both her creative writings and her criticism, Lesja Ukrajinka developed a complex reflection on the nature of art and the artist’s place in society. Prompted by her ambiguous response to contemporary trends in the arts such as decadence, she saw true art as the product of an authentic inspiration able to function in its social context. In this article, I attempt to show the complexity of Lesja Ukrajinka’s concept of art, neither instrumental nor ascetic, on the basis of a number of extracts from her critical writings, her letters, her poetry, and her works for theatre, with special attention to Blakytna trojanda, Advokat Martijan, and Orhija.