L. Ulickaya’s ‘Medea and Her Children’: Dia- logue with Antiquity

The article argues that L. Ulickaya’s novel presents a reconsidered ancient myth about Medea as a mother-murderer. The writer demythologizes ancient understanding of the woman as a vessel of the evil. Mythological ‘general places’ are not preserved in the novel. On the contrary, these places disturb picturesque and symbolic structure of the literary work and generate the anti-myth: L. Ulickaya’s Medea is a childless woman and a widow. On the one hand, L. Ulickaya’s Medea contains Hellenic understanding of a human being (connection with cosmic power, magic abilities, etc.); on the other hand, Medea is a Christian righteous person, a defender, a healer of souls, and a symbolical proto-mother of humanity. Though ‘Medea and Her Children’ is a contemporary novel, its structure is characteristic of a mythological novel.