The Stage Image of the Ukrainian Woman as a Reflection of the Status of Women at the Turn of the 20th Century

The purpose of the article is to study the sociocultural reasons that preconditioned the formation of a predominantly tragic image of the woman on the Ukrainian professional theater stage. Created by M.Zankovetska in a limited theater space, the images of common women revealed the strength of nature, the depth of feelings, and the spiritual beauty of the Ukrainian woman, doomed to suffering by force of circumstances, yet not miserable but majestic in hardship. The artistic truth of the stage image reflected the truth of life and that of the Ukrainian woman’s character, and through the audience's perception also revealed the attitude towards women in traditional Ukrainian culture, the bearer of which was the mass Ukrainian spectator. The research methodology consisted in the application of the historical-comparative, cultural, and art-critical methods. The abovementioned methodological approach provided for the revelation of the artistic truth of the stage image of the Ukrainian woman as a reflection of the truth of life of the oppressed people, the analysis of historical, cultural and esthetic aspects of the evolution of the Ukrainian theater space. The accomplishment of the stated purpose implied solving the following tasks: to characterize features of the formation and development of the Ukrainian professional theater; to determine the reasons for limiting the theater space; to explore the interdependence between the limited theater space and the stage image of the Ukrainian woman created by M.Zankovetska. Conclusions. The research showed that the theater space in which the classical Ukrainian theater was functioning was limited by a set of governmental restrictions. It was also established that the specificity of the audience, which at the turn of the 20th century represented the misstructured Ukrainian society, was one of the reasons why the repertoire of the classical Ukrainian theater lacked dramatic works on the life of the intelligentsia