Lexington Books Ukraine's Quest for Identity: Embracing Cultural Hybridity in Literary Imagination, 1991–2011

Winner of the 2019 Omeljan Pritsak Book Prize in Ukrainian Studies. Ukraine's Quest for Identity: Embracing Cultural Hybridity in Literary Imagination, 1991-2011 is the first study that looks at the literary process in post-independence Ukraine comprehensively and attempts to draw the connection between literary production and identity construction. In its quest for identity Ukraine has followed a path similar to other postcolonial societies, the main characteristics of which include a slow transition, hybridity, and identities negotiated on the center-periphery axis. This monograph concentrates on major works of literature produced during the first two decades of independence and places them against the background of clearly identifiable contexts such as regionalism, gender issues, language politics, social ills, and popular culture. It also shows that Ukrainian literary politics of that period privileges the plurality and hybridity of national and cultural identities. By engaging postcolonial discourse and insisting that literary production is socially instituted, Maria G. Rewakowicz explores the reasons behind the tendency toward cultural hybridity and plural identities in literary imagination. Ukraine's Quest for Identity will appeal to all those keen to study cultural, social and political ramifications of the collapse of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe and beyond. Review Ukraine's Quest for Identity is a very valuable contribution to the study of contemporary Ukrainian literature. Its wide scope allows it to expand upon important topics on the subject that have been introduced in the past and to bring up issues that evolve as Ukraine approaches it its third decade of independence. . . [Rewakowicz's] well-researched and engagingly organized monograph will be a very helpful tool for the growing number of people who study contemporary Ukraine and sense the importance that its literature holds in understanding the country's complex identity today.--Slavic Review This is Rewakowicz's third scholarly book and in it she examines several aspects of post-communist Ukrainian prose and poetry and individual and national self-formation. Rewakowicz (Rutgers Univ.; Univ. of Washington) proposes that multi-thematic, multiform literary creations reflect the sociopolitical and cultural growing pains that accompanied the two decades in which Ukraine shed its enslaving Russian communist rule. The postcolonial themes and attitudes of literary work reflect the deeply rooted inferiority complex engendered by the years of despicable references to non-native Russian speakers of occupied nations. Rewakowicz points out that the secondary role of native tongue is difficult to overcome, even when legalized as national language. The author analyzes several works, looking at national and political Ukrainian allegiance in the authors' use of surzhyk patois; popular literature assumes the role of a signpost, directing readers' attention to the shaping of national cultural and linguistic identity. Offering postmodern feminist and post-imperialist perspectives, this is fine scholarship. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.--CHOICE In Ukraine's Quest for Identity: Embracing Cultural Hybridity in Literary Imagination, 1991-2011, Maria G. Rewakowicz surveys and analyzes two decades of Ukrainian writing on identity issues. Using postcolonial arguments and culturological tools developed by Pierre Bourdieu, she examines the 'space of possibles, ' the cultural context from which post-independence Ukrainian literature arises. She discovers an intriguing and complex field where identities are actively explored, asserted, tested, molded, and, most importantly, compared, combined, and reconciled with one another. The range of issues involved in these explorations of identity include national identity, language, history, gender, religion, class, geography, age, crime, drugs, sex, and violence. Rewak