THE LITERARY INTERESTS OF ST. VLADIMIR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: POETRY (1834-1863)

The article depicts the poetry interests of in the life of St.Vladimir University students in the years 1834-1863. The main task of publication was to show the significance and role of poetry in the students’ life. It was defined which poetry was popular among students. The main peculiarities of student’s poetry creativity were highlighted in the article. The author points out that the students' interest in the poetry of this period was formed under the influence of the romanticism ideas and the specifics of the literary and artistic life of the region. The author admits that the most popular among students were Polish, Russian and Ukrainian romantic poets. Ukrainian folklore had a significant influence on the poetry of students. In general, student poetry was diverse in terms of genres and subjects. The main themes of students lyrics were love, philosophical reflections, patriotism (especially among polish students), etc. Quite often, students used historical themes in their poems. The so-called “bursch poetry”, in which humorous student adventures were described, was a unique genre of students poems. In poetry were reflected values, outlook, and political views of students. Sometimes students’ poems were converted into songs and become very popular among them. Usually, they sang these songs on common gatherings that help to unite some groups of students and create a feeling of corpocracy. The students had no unity about poetic preferences. The preferences of poles students were distinguished among others. They prefer to read Polish authors and most of them wrote poems in Polish. It should be noted, the period which we chose is one of the most active in students’ poetic creativity. During the next period of life of students of St. Vladimir we couldn’t find so high level of literary creativity.