Between Socialist Modernity and Liquid Modernity. Vesna Goldsworthy’s Memoir Chernobyl Strawberries

Abstract

In modernity studies, there has been an ongoing debate about different forms and phases of modernity. Eastern and Western Europe present special cases in this debate because modernity developed unevenly, and differences became particularly obvious after World War II. While the ‘Eastern bloc’ strove for socialist modernity, Western Europe continued its route of classic capitalist modernity, soon entering the state of late, or liquid modernity, of which fluid and fragmented identities were a defining feature. These conceptions of modernity have been reflected upon in the life narratives of people who experienced different modernities, of which Vesna Goldsworthy’s memoir Chernobyl Strawberries is a compelling example. She grew up in Yugoslavia’s socialist modernity but, at the age of twenty-five, left for Britain, where she became a journalist and literary scholar. A close reading of her memoir reveals that she emphasizes the similarity of Western classic and Yugoslav socialist modernities but also constructs herself as a cosmopolitan subject with the flexible identity typical of liquid modernity.