“How the Writer R. Left the City of Z for the Country U, and Along the Way He Died and Wrote a Novel”: Ukrainian Russophonia through the Lens of Vladimir Rafeenko’s Literary Experience

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to understand how the position and self-identification of Russophone writers in the Ukrainian literary context have changed over the last two decades (2000-2019). The prime example of the “afterlife” metaphorically experienced by Vladimir Rafeenko (b. 1969, Donetsk) in independent Ukraine will be the main focus of the investigation. Rafeenko’s literary experience in post-Soviet (and post-Maidan) Ukraine revolves around some of the main issues concerning the evolution of the Russophone cultural paradigm and its reception in the national scene: from marginality to recognition; from minority to self-determination; and, eventually, even to literary bilingualism. In this paper, these dynamics will be analysed through reading and interpreting some excerpts from Rafeenko’s most significant works, emblematically reflecting the emergence of his identification as a Ukrainian Russophone author in the post-Maidan era.