The Artist's Longing and Belonging Cultural Sensitivity in Yurii Kosach's Narratives
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Date
2016
Authors
Poliukhovych, Olga
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Abstract
As an émigré writer living outside of Ukraine, Yurii Kosach constructed an “imaginary
homeland” through his treatment of history, culture, and memory in his literary works. This
article analyzes these categories in Kosach’s meta-narratives of the artist in exile, by focusing
on the texts “Zaproshennia na Tsyteru” (An Invitation to Cythera, 1945), Skorbna symfoniia (The
Sorrowful Symphony, undated), and Senior Nikolo (Signore Nikolo, 1954). Kosach’s characters are
placed between exile and homeland, nation and empire, and self and other. All these notions
are included in a discourse that is inclusive rather than oppositional. Following a strategy used
by Lesia Ukrainka, Yurii Kosach also tests the artist’s ability to create in lands beyond one’s
homeland and in conditions of cultural oppression. Each story plot of the analyzed narratives is
constructed in terms of the cultural and national aspects of the artist’s identity.
Description
Keywords
Ukraine, exile, émigré literature, memory, past, Yurii Kosach
Citation
Poliukhovych Olga. The Artist's Longing and Belonging Cultural Sensitivity in Yurii Kosach's Narratives : [electronic resource] / Olga Poliukhovych // Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal. - 2016. - No. 3. - P. 143–159.