Anti-colonial Discourse Research Articles

The psychology of social change – 30 years post-apartheid: what went wrong and how to fix it?

This article presents some snapshots from 30 years of my collaborative work in the social psychology of social change in South Africa. Projects with students and colleagues used ethnographic, discursive, and survey methods to document racial encounters in the newly desegregated spaces of post-apartheid South Africa. I will review some of the successes and failures of desegregation efforts both in the country and in social psychology, where intergroup contact theory has come under considerable scrutiny. Critically, an assimilate-to-privilege form of desegregation has not resulted in systemic change but replaced the apartheid ‘colour line’ with an ‘epistemic line’ of White privilege and race stereotyping. Towards the end of the article, I’ll consider why anticolonial discourse rejects intergroup contact as a solution, and turn, finally, to Mbembe’s concept of Afropolitanism to make modest proposals for a way forward – the ‘how to fix it’ part of the article.

Anti-colonial discourse in Mo Yang’s novel “Death smells of sandalwood”

Anti-colonial discourse in Mo Yang’s novel “Death smells of sandalwood”

RETURNING TO SAID AND HIS «ORIENTALISM»

This article examines the impact of Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism on the contemporary geopolitical landscape. The authors argue that while the critique of Orientalism has significantly influenced academic discourse and domestic policies in Western countries, particularly the United States, it has not led to fundamental changes in global geopolitical strategy. The paper focuses on two key aspects: the natural connection between knowledge and power, which cannot be altered by anti-colonial declarations, and the shift of colonial discourse to new regions, specifically non-Western Europe. The authors posit that the strength of a modern state lies in its ability to dynamically bifurcate its image into internal and external faces, presenting different aspects to its society and foreign partners. Using the United States as a case study, the article demonstrates how internal anti-colonial discourse coexists with an unchanging foreign policy strategy of global dominance. The authors criticize the illusions about the possibility of changing the fundamental principles of US foreign policy, which has remained consistent since 1941. The paper emphasizes the continuation of a strategy aimed at fostering global dependence on the West, despite anti-colonial rhetoric. The article explores the complex interplay between domestic movements for social justice and decolonization, and the pragmatic realities of international relations. It argues that the deconstruction of Orientalism, while challenging the legitimacy of historical colonial practices, has not transformed the core geopolitical interests of Western states.The authors contend that the apparent dichotomy between internal anti-colonial discourse and external policy reflects both the complexity and strength of states like the US, where domestic and foreign policies can be shaped by different institutional and ideological forces. The paper also discusses the expansion of the concept of liberal democracy as an export product to regions deemed lacking in popular sovereignty.In conclusion, the article suggests that the critique of Orientalism, despite its academic and cultural impact, has been effectively neutralized in geopolitical practice. This is achieved through a shift in focus to regions not traditionally considered part of the «old» Western colonies, allowing for the implementation of economic partnership policies without the moral self-flagellation associated with charges of Orientalism. The paper ultimately argues that renaming reality does not change its underlying structure, and that the postmodern belief in the power of language to transform geopolitical realities is akin to magical thinking. It concludes that the critique of Orientalism has not fundamentally altered the eternal principles and interests guiding global geopolitical strategies.

The Return of the Oppressed: Notes on Kurdish Anti-colonialism

Abstract This article critically examines the historical trajectory and contemporary manifestations of Kurdish anti-colonialism. The analysis unfolds in two parts, dissecting the intricate relationship between theory and action within the Kurdish struggle. The historical dimension delves into Ottoman-era Turkish-style colonization, elucidating the displacement strategies employed by the Ottoman state. The study underscores the delayed integration of the colonialism concept into the Kurdish intellectual framework, shedding light on the challenges faced by the oppressed in articulating their anti-colonial narrative. The second part scrutinizes the ideological challenges within the Kurdish anti-colonial discourse. The instrumental use of the slogan “Kurdistan is a colony” is explored, emphasizing the dominance of socialist objectives over national liberation aspirations. The impact of socialism and pan-Islamism on Kurdish politics and the linguistic complexities that obscure the colonial difference through language are examined. Contemporary dynamics, such as the Peace and Democracy Process and political violence, are analyzed to provide insights into the evolving nature of the Kurdish struggle. The resurgence of colonial theory within Kurdish society, particularly through techno-Kurdishness, is explored, highlighting the role of modern communication technologies in reshaping the narrative. The article concludes by reflecting on the potential of the Kurdish struggle to inspire global resistance movements.

Ousmane Sembene's Camp De Thiaroye in the Context of Anticolonial African Literature

Almost all of the countries on the African continent have been under the domination of European powers for a certain period of time throughout their history. As a result, many books have been written on the continent, adopting an anti-colonial rhetoric. Numerous authors have analyzed European colonialism and offered suggestions for getting rid of it. Senegalese Ousmane Sembene is an anti-colonial writer and director. In a way, his films can be considered as a version of anticolonial literature transferred to the movie screen. Sembene is an extremely important name for African cinema. He is the first person directed a feature film (La Noire de…, 1966) in Sub-Saharan Africa. His political stance has been a major factor in shaping the identity of the cinema not only of his country Senegal, but of the entire African continent. He has influenced a significant number of directors from the African continent and is very important in the context of political. His pan-Africanist personality and view of cinema as a tool of social transformation allow his films to be evaluated in the context of anticolonialist literature. Anticolonial themes are seen in Sembene's films both in terms of content and mode of production. The movie Camp de Thiaroye (1988) also has an important place in this context. In this film, he exhibited the ways in which colonialism produced symbolic and physical violence. He also revealed the stages of Africans gaining consciousness on their way to independence. In this study, Sembene's Camp de Thiaroye is analyzed in order to reveal the relationship between anticolonialist African literature and African cinema. As a result of the study, it was seen that Sembene produced a strong anticolonial discourse through his cinema and brought up many issues mentioned by the anticolonial literature.

The Decolonization of the History of USSR’s Peoples in Soviet Historiography (1920–1930)

This article analyses the anti-colonial discourse in the Soviet historical science of the 1920s and 1930s. The work is based on both published materials and documents from the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is demonstrated that the anti-colonial discourse was built as an antithesis to the pre-revolutionary state-national historical narrative and was based on a radical and critical class analysis. In the 1920s, a kind of “historiographical sweep” took place, when, using class analysis, the students of M. N. Pokrovsky revealed the “great power” and “colonial” ideologems of the classics of Russian historical science and their followers. The anti-colonial vector of Soviet historiography was embodied in the historiographical concept of the “history of the peoples of the USSR”. It was assumed that all the peoples of the USSR were to receive a full-fledged place in history. However, since the mid‑1930s, there has been a drift from radical revolutionary anti-colonialism towards a more statesmanlike ideology and the development of consolidating concepts. The turning point was the meeting of historians with Stalin in March 1934, after which the process of transition from the concept of “the history of the peoples of the USSR” to “the history of the USSR” was launched, which was fixed in the Short Course of the History of the USSR (1937) edited by A. V. Shestakov. The international context also played a significant role in curtailing anticolonial rhetoric, since there were fears that foreign policy opponents would use this to divide the peoples of the USSR. Historians of the “old school”, who advocated the return to the concepts of pre-revolutionary historiography, also played a certain role in the correction. In turn, these concepts fit better into the current ideological situation and found support in the Central Committee of the CPSU(b). The marginalization of anti-colonial discourse occurs during the war and postwar period.

ЗОВНІШНЯ ПОЛІТИКА США: МІЖ ПОЛІТИЧНИМ РЕАЛІЗМОМ І ЛІБЕРАЛЬНИМИ ЦІННОСТЯМИ

The author of the reviewed monograph showed the mutual influence of the domestic and foreign policy of the United States. The reviewed book is interesting for its conceptual generalizations and establishment of causal relationships between different stages of the political history of the United States in the context of the history of Americanforeign policy. The independence of the United States marked the emergence of a potential world power. The North’s victory in the Civil War eliminated external threats to the United States. The author considers the period of the two world wars to be a continuation of the process of the United States entering the forefront of the world. During World War I, the United States turned from a debtor country into the world’s largest creditor. The author indirectly considers isolationism to be relevant to that time in the history of U.S. foreign policy. The policy of neutrality was based on American public sentiment. The author of the monograph considers the lack of a common vision of the post-war world, insufficient understanding of the culture of the USSR and the USA, the loss of hopes for the liberalization of the Stalinist regime, and the politics of fear for one’s security to be the prerequisites of the Cold War. After World War II, the United States supported the independence of former European colonies. The Korean War and the Vietnam War were attempts to defend the American vision of international relations. The collapse of the USSR created the prerequisites for the rise of a new world power, communist China. The author of the monograph criticizes Trump’s imperial isolationism. The balance between political realism and liberal values is the key to effective U.S. foreign policy. On the ideological scale between liberal, revisionist, and conservative paradigms of conceptual understanding of the history of U.S. foreign policy, Warren Cohen’s monograph takes a position on the left of the liberal flank with its anti-colonial discourse, criticism of interventionism, hopes for a balance between realism and idealism.

Teaching Charles Alexander Eastman’s “The North American Indian” in Dialogue with Elaine Goodale Eastman’s Yellow Star

AbstractCharles Eastman’s “The North American Indian” address for the 1911 Universal Races Congress (URC) in London provides multiple pathways for teaching in a comparative context. One productive approach involves setting the lecture in dialogue with Elaine Goodale Eastman’s Yellow Star, published in the same year. Another entails asking students to situate Charles Eastman’s talk in the context of the URC as a vital milestone in global thought leaders’ engagement with questions about race. This approach could include juxtaposing Eastman’s lecture with one by W. E. B. Du Bois delivered at the same convention. Pedagogy for Eastman’s speech can also locate this text in the context of his larger oeuvre, including more assertively anticolonial discourse in later writings for Indigenous readers.

History of Bonaparte’s Egyptian Campaign in Modern Historiography

In this article, the author presents a comprehensive analysis of the most recent foreign publications on the history of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, published over the past five years. He begins by providing a concise overview of the historiography of this topic, outlining the key areas of development over the past decades and identifying the works that have become classics in each field. Furthermore, he highlights the increasing prominence of anti-colonial discourse, largely influenced by the concepts articulated in Edward Said’s seminal work, Orientalism, within the historiography of the Egyptian campaign since the early twenty-first century. The classic representation of these concepts in the historiography of this topic is a monograph by the American orientalist J. Cole. The impact of this discourse on the content of recent works is evident, particularly in the selection of topics by their authors. Consequently, the French military historian A. Pigeard was compelled to disguise his somewhat unconventional interest in the military aspects of the Egyptian campaign by discussing scientific topics that were not characteristic of his previous works. The Irish historian J. Clarke selected the topic of war crimes perpetrated by the French against the Egyptians for his research. Furthermore, the most significant works related to the history of the expedition that have appeared over the past period — the monograph of the English historian T. Sarafatti — can be characterised by the author’s desire to refute Said about the motivation of the French Orientalists who created the Description of Egypt. Concurrently, a notable recent trend in the historiography of the Egyptian campaign has been the inclusion of brief excursions into this topic by specialists from related fields of historical science. While this does contribute to a certain revival, it does not facilitate the emergence of fundamental research comparable in depth to the classical works of previous years.

Verbalisation of an alternative academic position in totalitarian discourse

Background. In Soviet Ukraine, academic discourse often acted as a means of implementing language planning, in particular as a tool for the transformation of the language corpus. All grammar textbooks published after 1933 broadcast the official knowledge: the vocative is not a full-fledged case, but rather a special form of address; morphological means of expressing address in Ukrainian are the “vocative form” and “nominative case.” In the conditions of total control over all areas of social life, Ukrainian linguists were faced with a choice of either 1) look for certain language devices, broadcasting the official theory, which would convince the addressee to believe in the talking points that did not fully comply with the language facts, and then anchor those points in their consciousness; 2) avoid aspects that disagree with the language practice or the logic of academic description; 3) word the findings of their research and observations of the language practice in a way that would not contradict the official theory.Contribution to the research field. The article is dedicated to the analysis of the communication practices used by Ukrainian linguists in the Soviet times to express their academic position, which did not agree with official knowledge. The object of comprehension was a unique for postcolonial societies situation in which the creators of both the official discourse and the alternative discourse opposed to it were the colonised themselves.Purpose. The aim of this research is to analyse ways and means of verbalisation of the alternative academic position held by linguists in the academic discourse of the totalitarian era, based on the materials representing the topics “The Case System” and “Address” in Ukrainian grammar books for higher education, published between 1933–1991.Methods. The research is based on the theoretical and methodological foundations of postcolonial studies, which involve a critical reading of texts that reflect the influence of various forms of authority on the life of subordinate communities. In particular, the theory of critical reading of J. Errimgton’s linguistic works and R. Vodaks’ methodology of discourse-historical approach, which has been adapted for academic discourse analysis, have been applied in this research.Results. Some linguists, who did not share the canonised theory of the vocative, implied their point of view in the official texts they had created (i.e. textbooks for higher education.) On the one hand, they used official terminology and theoretical concepts: they were consistent in naming the vocative case a “vocative form,” and presented two ways of expressing address. On the other hand, the lexical and grammatical structure of their statements levelled the postulates regarding the fact that “vocative is not a case”, and that “the nominative case is used to express address on par with the vocative.” Among the techniques used by the linguists, heavily euphemistic speech in combination with syntactic complication of the structure prevailed, as well as splitting nominations by verbalising the concept with variant naming and violation of logical connections between consecutive statements. Such individual practices of linguistic resistance replicated the practices of the official totalitarian discourse, but with the aim to broadcast the opposite meaning.Discussion. The peculiarity of the alternative academic discourse (in particular, the language education one) of the totalitarian era lies in the fact that it did not directly confront the official theory, but rather occurred within its boundaries. This gives a reason to consider some Ukrainian linguists of the Soviet period as creators of both colonial and anti-colonial discourses.

MENA Region Trends Revisited

Introduction. The following article analyzes key development trends of the contemporary Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The authors provide a critical retrospective review of conclusions made in their previous works dedicated to the century-long development trends in the Middle East and neo-modernity as a new status of socio-political reality. Results. In the first part of the article, they detect a shift in some megatrends of global development that occurred as a result of the world order transformation in the 2020s. The authors conclude that such megatrends as universalization of political systems, Western-type modernization and globalization are becoming outdated. At the same time, an intensification of the anti-colonial discourse in the world politics and a revision of the colonialism phenomenon are in evidence. The second part of the article demonstrates how these trends and notions directly manifest themselves in the MENA region, impacing the specifics of political processes and complexity of socio-political systems and institutes, reinforcing the ideas of country-based nationalism, changing the nature of regional unity and strengthening the centrifugal tendencies in the regional development. In the third part, the authors point out that all these processes provide an endurance test of some sort for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as a unified region that emerged in the colonial era. Discussion and Conclusion. The weakening of ideological ties within the region, rise of country-based nationalism, economic and political differentiation of the region’s states, increasing division of the subregions call the future of the Middle Eastern unity into doubt. At the same time, a growing post-colonialism trend might theoretically become a new integrative basis for emerging values and ideas. In this context, the authors designate such development trends in the region that are considered by them most relevant and sustainable in mid-term perspective.

The U.S. American left and reverse moral exceptionalism: when do villains become heroes?

ABSTRACT This article takes the assassination of Qasem Soleimani as a case study that manifests the schism between the realities of those in revolutionary struggle and those on the U.S. American left who might gather in solidarity with them. I explicate “reverse moral exceptionalism” as a nationalistic tendency to insist on oneself as central to every event of significance on the world stage and which positions the United States (U.S.) as a singular source of evil in the world. Based on an ethnocentrism that approaches the world from a position of dominance, reverse moral exceptionalism saturates the space available for others and induces the inability to listen to the testimony of others. Cartesian “either-or” logics situate all non-white state actors as inherently colonized and by extension, all colonial brown actors emerge as apolitical victims. I argue that when whiteness is only understood in racially provincial terms, it distorts understandings of inter-racial collusion in the transnational context. I attend to the unlikely ways in which whiteness and its concomitant forms of exceptionalism permeate U.S. American nationalist subjectivities, setting the groundwork for an anti-colonial discourse that paradoxically justifies oppressive regimes and brings about indifference to grassroots revolutionary discourse and the micropolitics of resistance.

Loyalty and patriotism: the role of Crimean Tatars in Ukraine’s nation-building project

ABSTRACT During the Revolution of Dignity and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Crimean Tatars overwhelmingly expressed their loyalty and identification with the Ukrainian state. This article examines the factors that account for Crimean Tatars’ siding with Ukraine and interrogates the meaning of Ukrainian identity for their culturally, linguistically, and religiously distinct community. To do that, the author engages in a twofold approach of 1) macro-level, long-term historical examination of the relationship between Ukrainian state actors and Crimean Tatars, and 2) micro-level, sociological analysis of the contemporary relationship within Crimean Tatar society. Tracing the genealogy of encounters between Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian dissidents in the Soviet period, the author argues that their shared anti-Soviet outlook allowed the two nations to view each other as allies in independent Ukraine. Furthermore, the liberal, anti-colonial discourse shared widely among Crimean Tatars found its reflection in their newly embraced civic Ukrainian identity. Yet it is also important to take into account the internal struggle among Crimean Tatars during the annexation, which reflects the tensions, risks, and rewards that come with the choice of identification.

So-Called Sovereign Settlers: Settler Conspirituality and Nativism in the Australian Anti-Vax Movement

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the social and economic instability that followed, has given new life to conspirituality and far-right ideology in so-called Australia. This article discusses how politico-spiritual communities invested in both conspiracy theories and New Age spirituality have pieced together settler narratives about a New World Order and external threats to Western society from far-right and white supremacist Christian ideology circulated via new media. Using anti-colonial discourse analysis, we elucidate the undercurrent of white supremacist ideology in the Australian anti-vax movement, and highlight the misuse of Indigeneity in far-right and anti-vax narratives. We discuss how these narratives are settler-colonial and how conspiritualists co-opt and perform Indigeneity as a form of settler nativism. As a case study, we analyse the use of the term sovereignty by settlers attached to Muckadda Camp—a camp of ‘Original Sovereigns’ occupying the lawn outside Old Parliament house from December 2021 to February 2022. Using Indigenous critique from both new media and academia, we argue that although settlers may perform Indigeneity, they are exercising white supremacist settler narratives, and not Indigenous sovereignty.

Ideologeme of Justice and Anticolonial Discourse as Justification for Türkiey’s Foreign Policy

The article critically examines how Türkiey justifies its proactive foreign policy through the concept of justice. The study analyzes Turkish discourse, blending Islamic teachings with an anticolonial stance, to characterize the understanding of justice. Initially used to legitimize opposition against secular elites, justice now serves as a tool for global leadership, mediation in conflicts involving Muslims, and regional focus on post-Ottoman states. It counters political opponents, gains negotiating advantages in EU accession talks, supports aspirations for a UN Security Council seat, and extends military presence beyond the region. The study concludes that justice grants moral legitimacy to Türkiye’s foreign policy decisions, particularly resonating with Muslim audiences.Rooted in Islamist principles and an anticolonial discourse, Türkiye positions itself as a just leader opposing historical oppression by the West. The concept of justice is crucial in shaping Türkiye’s foreign policy, establishing its authority as a just and moral actor internationally. By leveraging justice, Türkiye aims to assert leadership, mediate conflicts, and prioritize historically significant regions. Understanding the ideologeme of justice provides insights into Türkiye’s strategic decision-making and its aspiration for a just and influential role globally.

An Irish Rebel in New Spain: The Tumultuous Life and Tragic Death of William Lamport

An Irish Rebel in New Spain: The Tumultuous Life and Tragic Death of William Lamport

Anti-Colonial Discourse as Geopolitics :

Scholars often view anti-colonialism as litle more than moral rhetoric in which former colonised states question the West by employing narratives of historic victimisation and marginalisation. While this moral messaging has shaped aspects of post-colonial foreign policy, anti-colonialism is rarely appreciated as a tool of geopolitical practice. This article applies theories of critical geopolitics to argue that anti-colonialism was and is a unique geopolitical strategy allowing formerly colonized states to re-balance centers of political, economic, and military power from historically colonising states to the colonised states. Importantly, anti-colonialism is a geopolitical alternative to territorially defined, Westphalian concepts such as sovereignty and the anarchic international system of states. India has historically maintained a leading role in elucidating and employing anti-colonialism as a geopolitical framework and this article explores four sub-themes of this framework: autochthonous freedom, Pan-Asianism, non-violence, and non-alignment. Each of these sub-themes is explored by examining the geopolitical discourse of Indian leaders through the lens of critical geopolitics, which argues that geography is not objective fact but contested history. Through these sub-themes, Indian leaders have used anti-colonialism as a geopolitical tool to challenge existing power-territory structures to rebalance global power in favor of the formerly colonized world.

Fear and loathing in North Ossetia: how ethnic activism can turn into religious nativism

ABSTRACT This contribution examines how ethnic activism in a republic of the Russian North Caucasus region, namely North Ossetia-Alania, is viewed by various social groups as a religious protest movement. This interpretation is influenced by anti-colonial discourse and an ideological agenda linking issues of religious identity and political loyalty. At the centre of these disputes are ideas about whether the ethnic religion of the Ossetian people is the local version of Orthodox Christianity or the original Ossetian religion of pre-Christian genesis that has survived to this day in the form of Ossetian ethnic traditions. Proponents of the latter concept argue that the spread of Orthodox Christianity among Ossetians should be seen as the result of spiritual colonisation by external political forces. Orthodox leaders and many ordinary believers in North Ossetia strongly protest against this interpretation of the role of Orthodoxy in the republic. Under these conditions Ossetia’s Orthodox Christians perceive any anti-colonial public gesture as aimed at contesting the completeness of their ethnic identity.

РОСІЙСЬКА МАТРИЦЯ Й АЛГОРИТМИ ДЕКОЛОНІЗАЦІЇ (Рецензія на книгу: Агеєва Віра. За лаштунками імперії. Есеї про українсько-російські культурні відносини: 2-е видання, випр. Київ: Віхола, 2023. 360 с.)

The review is dedicated to the new book of Professor Vira Ageyeva, in which she examines Ukrainian-Russian relations mainly of the past two centuries under an anti-colonial perspective. The fact is that in world Slavic studies a lot has been written about these relations in the context of overtly or covertly articulated Russian interests and priorities. The Russian Empire, as this state was called from birth, constantly ennobled its history with other people's achievements and gains, in return depriving Ukrainians of what they had achieved. Through the prism of the cultural process, Vira Ageyeva describes and examines the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian Empire and the struggle for the preservation of collective memory. In these centuries, Ukrainian literature was the main spokesperson of the anti-colonial discourse. The author of the book traces the dynamics of this discourse, which she keeps track of from Kotlyarevsky, Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, Kharkiv romantics to the era of modernism, and then to several attempts to establish a state. Ukrainian culture and literature in particular during these periods offered different models of identity, one way or another, more or less successfully undermining the Russian imperial matrix and asserting its own cultural self-sufficiency. At the same time, as Vira Ageyeva convincingly proved, the humanism of Russian literature, which is talked about so much in the departments of Slavic studies of Western universities, with rare exceptions was exhausted (and is exhausted now) on the Ukrainian question.

Memory as a women’s space in the novel “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” by O. Zabuzhko

The subject of the research is the conceptualization of memory as a female sphere in the novel “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” by O. Zabuzhko. The key problem of the study is the interpretation of the image of women in the novel in the context of national and generational memory. The objective of the research is to explore the female domains associated with the space of memory and to highlight the peculiarities of the image of women as keepers of memory. The descriptive, hermeneutic, and intertextual analysis methods have been employed to achieve the objective. The novelty of the research lies in the examination of female images in the novel from the perspective of the burden of representation (N. Yuval-Davis) and considering the conceptual positions of O. Zabuzhko outlined in the essay “A Woman Author in Colonial Culture, or Necessities for Ukrainian Gender Mythology”. As a result, it was established that the sphere of memory in the novel “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” is associated with such female domains as: special female creativity (artistic transformation of destroyed household items in the works by Vladyslava Matusevych); girls’ game of “secrets”; the private space of home, which is opposed to the space of “official truth”; intimate relationships and pregnancy. Women appear as keepers of national memory and reproducers of the nation itself (through their ability to give birth), as well as bearers of mystical knowledge about the past. The study traces the anti-colonial discourse of “The Museum of Abandoned Secrets” in a distinct synthesis of gender and national issues. The woman in O. Zabuzhko’s novel is “burdened” with the burden of representation — her bodily being represents the national dignity of her country. Accordingly, the mistake in choosing a man is perceived as a tragic mistake of the heroine (Olena Dovhan), which her heiress (Daryna Hoshchynska) must atone for. The image of Olena Dovhan is seen as a variant of the iconic image of Kateryna, which embodies colonised Ukraine. In contrast, we observe in the image of Daryna Hoshchynska a distinct type of heroine whose intimate life is a space of decolonisation. In the intimate relationship between Daryna and Adrian, the reconstruction of family memory takes place, which reflect collective memory — the memories of the Holodomor and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army’s liberation struggle. The culmination of this relationship is Daryna’s pregnancy, which represents the liberation of Ukraine-woman from the rule of foreigners and gives hope for victory in the war against the coloniser. The study of the gender aspect of postcolonial memory allows for broad prospects within feminist literary studies, literary memory studies, and other fields.