Where currents meet : frontiers of memory in post-Soviet fiction of Kharkiv, Ukraine

Where Currents Meet treats the Ukrainian and Russian components of cultural experience in Ukraine's East as elements of a complex continuum. This study of cultural memory in post-Soviet space shows how its inhabitants negotiate the historical legacy they have inherited. Tanya Zaharchenko approaches contemporary Ukrainian literature at the intersection of memory studies and border studies, and her analysis adds a new voice to an ongoing exploration of cultural and historical discourses in Ukraine. This scholarly journey through storylines explores the ways in which younger writers in Kharkiv (Kharkov in Russian), a diverse, dynamic, but understudied border city in east Ukraine today come to grips with a traumatized post-Soviet cultural landscape. Zaharchenko's book examines the works of Serhiy Zhadan, Andrei Krasniashchikh, Yuri Tsaplin, Oleh Kotsarev and others, introducing them as a "doubletake" generation who came of age during the Soviet Union's collapse and as adults revisited this experience in their novels. Filling the space between society and the state, local literary texts have turned into forms of historical memory and agents of political life. Where Currents Meet, Tanya Zaharchenko's path-breaking study of literature and cultural memory, moves decisively beyond the simplistic view of a post-Soviet Ukraine divided between east and west. It positions the Ukrainian and Russian components of cultural experience in the country's east as elements of a complex continuum. Combining insights from memory studies and border studies, Zaharchenko analyzes a generation of younger riters in the city of Kharkiv—a "doubletake generation" that came of age at the time of the Soviet Union's collapse and now revisits this experience through fiction. In the works of Serhiy Zhadan, Andreĭ Krasniashchikh, Yuri Tsaplin, Oleh Kotsarev, and others the author reveals how borderlands and frontiers, both geographical and conceptual, acquire zonal qualities of their own as these writers navigate the historical legacy they have inherited. TABLE OF CONTENTS Notes on format Foreword Introduction. DOUBLETAKE GENERATION AND THE SHIMMER OF FRONTIERS Introduction Time and space Memory and literature The shimmer of frontiers Where currents meet Chapter One. FRONTIERS OF IDENTITY Introduction Fluid identities Narratives at war Sloboda: Roots of fluidity Chapter Two. FRONTIERS OF EMPTINESS Introduction The last barricade A story in old drawings Of monsters and men Memory and emptiness The nonmissing variable Chapter Three. FRONTIERS OF LIFE AND DEATH Introduction The Charon hypothesis The mourning writer Chapter Four. FRONTIERS OF TRAUMA Introduction Expressing the unspeakable Surviving the unspeakable Traversing the unspeakable Writing about the unspeakable Chapter Five. FRONTIERS OF (IN)SANITY Introduction Monologues of madness Death, movement, place CONCLUSION Primary Sources Bibliography Index Hybrid Renaissance introduces the idea that the Renaissance in Italy, elsewhere in Europe, and in the world beyond Europe is an example of cultural hybridization