Genesis and Evolution of the Ukrainian Syllabotonicism

Russian verse, which had adopted the syllabotonic system earlier than other Slavic poetries, significantly influenced its diffusion in Eastern Europe. To some degree, Ukrainian poetry also underwent this influence. Early examples of iambic versification date to the second half of the 18th century. This research traces the evolution of Ukrainian iambic tetrameter from Maksimovich’s ode of 1761 until the 1850s. Particular attention is paid to Taras Shevchenko’s versification as compared with iambic verses by Pushkin and some Ukrainian contemporaries of Shevchenko. The present study considers different rhythmic characteristics of verse, in particular, the distribution of the main configurations of stressed syllables, frequencies of stresses on strong metric positions, and the particularities of the prosodic realization of meter. The study shows that despite a similarity in the development of Russian and Ukrainian tetrameters (having common tendencies and laws of the distribution of stresses on ictuses), there are considerable differences in the rhythm of Russian and Ukrainian verse.