Transcultural and intercultural features of German and Ukrainian adaptations of Daniel Defoe's "Life and Amazing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" in the context of the African Mediterranean coast.

The article deals with the situation in the Mediterranean region on its African coast in the middle of the 17th century depicted in the novel of Ihor Fediv and Valentyn Zlotopolets “Syn Ukrainy” (The Son of Ukraine), which was published in 1919. The question is asked, how the historical background of that period was used in the Ukrainian robinsonade to form indomitable fighters for Ukrainian independence using the example of the protagonist Mykola Nalyvajko, what corresponded to the intention of the authors. That aim was achieved through adaption and partly freely translation of J.H. Campeʾs Robinsonade “Robinson the Younger”, which was in turn an adaptation of the adventure novel “The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe” by D. Defoe. In this study transcultural, intercultural, national-cultural and ethnic-cultural problems were taken into account in relation to the subjects and the protagonists of these robinsonades.The transcultural thematic core of the Robinsonades plot is formed by the adventures of the protagonist, who, with God's help, overcomes all the hardships that come to him due to his unreasonableness, namely surviving huge sea storms, taking part in colonial life, escaping from slavery, spending several years alone on a deserted island and later founds a colony with a local that embodies a utopian idea of coexistence between Europeans and non-Europeans. These transcultural basic elements are adapted in the Robinsonades by Campe and by Fediv/Zlotopolets to the situational content of both Robinsonades, whereby the national cultural identity of the protagonists is worked out. The focus in the German Robinsonade is on educating a German-speaking audience that should become people of the world and represent liberal views. The adaptation concerns the intercultural exchange between Germans about the actions of an Englishman and non-Europeans in one time level, in the 17th century, in order to work out and consolidate generally valid values of human existence in the second time level, at the end of the 18th century. In the Robinsonade of Fediv and Zlotopolets, Robinson's story was adapted to the figure of a fighter for the independence of Ukraine, whereby this figure was endowed with positive qualities: steadfastness, efficiency, fear of God, loyalty to ideas and religion and good university education.