Eastern Europe

Abstract

Abstract This article discusses the interdependent notions of “decadent” and “new” in Russian and Ukrainian writers at the fin de siècle. Eastern European decadence is located at the intersection of not only gender and temporal perspectives, but also spatial ones created by the impact of the colonial situation on the culture of the region. The analysis is not limited to decadent works by such Russian authors as Zinaida Gippius and Leonid Andreyev, but also includes Ukrainian writing produced at the peripheries of the Russian and Astro-Hungarian Empires by Volodymyr Vynnychenko and Olha Kobylianska, who explore androgyny, cross-gendering, and new forms of female intimacy. By looking beyond the imperial Russian capitals of Moscow and St. Petersburg to examine the “new people” of decadence, this chapter decenters traditional views of the region to draw a less predictable landscape of Eastern European literature.