The topic of memory and identity in contemporary Ukrainian prose

Abstract

The relevance of the study is determined by the need to highlight the issues of memory and identity in the context of globalization, decolonization, the escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and the intensification of the search for national and individual identity, particularly through the means of literature. The object of the research is Ukrainian prose of the beginning of the 21st century, which records memory and raises the issues of identity and historical continuity. The epic dimension of the problem is most fully represented by such novels as “Oblivion” by Tania Maliarchuk, “Amadoka” by Sofiіa Andrukhovych, and “Beech Land” by Maria Matios. The subject of the research is individual and group memory and identity, at one time artificially displaced from the national narrative and deliberately interrupted by the dictatorial Soviet-Russian regime. The study aims to investigate the artistic reconstruction of the memory and identity of Ukrainians in national literature of the beginning of the 21st century, to find out the instrumentalization of memory meanings and the role of remembering/forgetting. As a result of the research, using the hermeneutic method, we trace the artistic interpretation of memory in the context of an intensive understanding of the place and role of Ukrainians in the unfolding of the plot of history, returning to them a sense of individuality, and simply uniqueness, integrality, and durability (that is, permanence). Tania Maliarchuk’s novel “Oblivion” tells about the memory and place of modern man in the post-colonial Ukrainian space, about his awareness of the connection and continuity of the past, present, and future. Sofiіa Andrukhovych's novel “Amadoka” deals with the history of four generations of different eras and is united by the theme of the rupture of memory, tradition, time, and space. A successful attempt at positive processing of memory and identity based on the material of the history of Bukovyna in the 18th–21st centuries was performed by Maria Matios in the novel “Beech Land”. In addition to the common goal of exposing the Soviet pseudo-memory and (re)nourishing specific Ukrainian identity, the authors raise issues of regional specificity of public perception and debunking Soviet-Russian myths about the USSR. The prospects of research on the topic of memory and identity are reproductions of the entire range of semantic resources encoded in Ukrainian literature. This can become a way to escape from the power of the myths of the Russian Empire.