Ukrainian Women Writers And The National Imaginary

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian literary world has not only experienced a true blossoming of women’s prose, but has also witnessed a number of female authors assume the roles of literary trendsetters and authoritative critics of their culture. In this first in-depth study of how Ukrainian women’s prose writing was able to re-emerge so powerfully after being marginalized in the Soviet era, Oleksandra Wallo examines the writings and literary careers of leading contemporary Ukrainian women authors, such as Oksana Zabuzhko, Ievheniia Kononenko, and Maria Matios. Her study shows how these women reshaped literary culture with their contributions to the development of the Ukrainian national imaginary in the wake of the Soviet state’s disintegration. The interjection of women’s voices and perspectives into the narratives about the nation has often permitted these writers to highlight the diversity of the national picture and the complexity of the national story. Utilizing insights from postcolonial and nationalism studies, Wallo’s book theorizes the interdependence between the national imaginary and narrative plots, and scrutinizes how prominent Ukrainian women authors experimented with literary form in order to rewrite the story of women and nationhood.

By writing of Ukrainian national identity from a woman-centered perspective, female authors from the last Soviet generation established themselves as authoritative critics of their culture and paved the way to visibility and success for their younger female literary peers.

The Intellectual as Hero in 1990s Ukrainian Fiction weaves a fascinating narrative full of colourful characters by examining the prose of today's leading writers.

Superfluous Women tells the unique story of a generation of artists, feminists, and queer activists who emerged in Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. With a focus on new media, Zychowicz demonstrates how contemporary artist collectives in Ukraine have contested Soviet and Western connotations of feminism to draw attention to a range of human rights issues with global impact. In the book, Zychowicz summarizes and engages with more recent critical scholarship on the role of digital media and virtual environments in concepts of the public sphere. Mapping out several key changes in newly independent Ukraine, she traces the discursive links between distinct eras, marked by mass gatherings on Kyiv’s main square, in order to investigate the deeper shifts driving feminist protest and politics today.

Oksana Zabuzhko, author of "the most influential Ukrainian book in the fifteen years since independence," Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex, returns with a gripping short story collection. Oksana Zabuzhko, Ukraine's leading public intellectual, is called upon to make sense of the unthinkable reality of our times. In this breathtaking short story collection, she turns the concept of truth over in her hands like a beautifully crafted pair of gloves. From the triumph of the Orange Revolution, which marked the start of the twenty-first century, to domestic victories in matchmaking, sibling rivalry, and even tennis, Zabuzhko manages to shock the reader by juxtaposing things as they are--inarguable, visible to the naked eye--with how things could be, weaving myth and fairy tale into pivotal moments just as we weave a satisfying narrative arc into our own personal mythologies. At once intimate and worldly, these stories resonate with Zabuzhko's irreverent and prescient voice, echoing long after reading.

This study examines the connections between literature and national identity in post-Soviet Ukraine. The author conceives of literary production as a social institution and analyzes such topics as gender, regionalism, language politics, and popular culture. This work also situates Ukraine’s post-Soviet development within a broader regional context.

Honorable Mention - American Association for Ukrainian Studies (AAUS) 2018-2019 Book Prize Having exploded on the margins of Europe, Chornobyl marked the end of the Soviet Union and tied the era of postmodernism in Western Europe with nuclear consciousness. The Post-Chornobyl Library in Tamara Hundorova’s book becomes a metaphor of a new Ukrainian literature of the 1990s, which emerges out of the Chornobyl nuclear trauma of the 26th of April, 1986. Ukrainian postmodernism turns into a writing of trauma and reflects the collisions of the post-Soviet time as well as the processes of decolonization of the national culture. A carnivalization of the apocalypse is the main paradigm of the post-Chornobyl text, which appeals to “homelessness” and the repetition of “the end of histories.” Ironic language game, polymorphism of characters, taboo breaking, and filling in the gaps of national culture testify to the fact that the Ukrainians were liberating themselves from the totalitarian past and entering the society of the spectacle. Along this way, the post-Chornobyl character turns into an ironist, meets with the Other, experiences a split of his or her self, and witnesses a shift of geo-cultural landscapes.

Exploring a rich array of folk traditions that developed in the Ukrainian diaspora and in Ukraine during the twentieth century, Ukrainian Otherlands is an innovative exploration of modern ethnic identity and the deeply felt (but sometimes deeply different) understandings of ethnicity in homeland and diaspora.