Women Poets and National History: Reading Margaret Atwood, Anna Akhmatova, and Lina Kostenko Iryna Tsobrova Doctor of Philosoph
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Women Poets and National History: Reading Margaret Atwood, Anna Akhmatova, and Lina Kostenko by Iryna Tsobrova A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Comparative Literature University of Alberta © Iryna Tsobrova, 2014 ii Abstract This dissertation focuses on the portrayal of historical events in the works of Margaret Atwood, Anna Akhmatova, and Lina Kostenko. These Canadian, Russian, and Ukrainian poets present women as participants in political events, possessing historical agency, and taking part in the creation of a national past. While acknowledging the epistemological limitations of history writing (its inherent narrative mode, ideological and political implications, and other factors), I argue that the three authors uncover the tangible link that unites two remote points in history and enhances our perception of the current situation. Atwood’s awareness of the hermeneutic limitations of the writing of history informs her literary works; however, Akhmatova and Kostenko hold a more traditional view of generating historical accounts and their validity. What unites these poets is the belief that past events have an impact on the decision- making process of future generations. Adopting a new historical and a postcolonial approach, I demonstrate how the texts under investigation enter into a complex relationship with hegemonic ideologies and how their position changes in relation to power structures. These writers’ poems act as dynamic forces that reflect past events and simultaneously reshape the discursive field, producing and negotiating new meanings. These works function at the intersection of the present and the past, mapping a “third space” that has a discernible connection to the past and offers the possibility of different futures. Historical poetry offers a unique perspective iii on past events because it describes a specific historical context that resists homogenizing tendencies. This genre amalgamates the realms of the individual and the collective, making it a profoundly private and at the same time a communal experience. iv Acknowledgements My supervisors, Albert Braz and Irene Sywenky, for your meticulous guidance and valuable feedback. My parents, for your love and support. My supervisory and examining committees: Oleh Ilnytzkyj, Maxim Tarnawsky, Christine Wiesenthal, and Daniel Fried. Jillian Skeffington and Pamela Farvolden, for your useful advice and encouragement. Maria, Alexander, Katya, Satish, Maria, Vadim, and Gloria, for your friendship and long conversations about literature and politics. Laura, for your intellectual support and appreciation of literature. Shumaila, for our exchange of ideas. John, Linda, and Judith, for believing in me. v Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter I. History, Memory, and Women’s Poetry: Writing the 21 National Past Representing Historical Events: Limitations and Possibilities 23 The National Past and Its Uses 34 Poetry as a Site of Memory: Dichotomies and Paradoxes 49 Women and History: Theorizing Agency and Re-Creating the Subject 65 Chapter II. The Historical Poetry of Margaret Atwood: 75 The Politics of Representing, Recreating, and Witnessing “The Hermeneutic Conundrum” versus the Value of History 78 The Life of Ambivalence: Nineteenth-Century Canadian History in 86 Atwood’s Poetry “We Are Hostile Nations”: Contemporary Political Events and Archetypal 109 Violence vi Chapter III. The Ethical Dimensions of History: Anna Akhmatova’s 123 Poems of Memory The Silver Age and the “Real Twentieth Century”: Historical 126 Catastrophes, Disrupted Traditions Remembrance as a Moral Category 147 Hegemonic and Oppositional Discourses in Akhmatova’s War Poems 159 Poem without a Hero: Re-negotiating the Memory of Her Generation 166 Chapter IV. Revisioning History and Creating a Nation: 177 Lina Kostenko’s Poetry Contesting Meaning and Realigning Historical Boundaries: Marusia 179 Churai from New Historical and Postcolonial Perspectives A Symbolic Voice and a National Myth: The Interconnectedness of the 190 Personal, the Generational, and the Collective Female Poets as Creative Agents: Cultural Memory and the Collective 207 National Consciousness Conclusion 216 Works Cited 226 1 Introduction Since the second half of the twentieth century, two distinct approaches to the writing of history have emerged. Relativist scholars view history as a discourse generated by historians: our ability to represent and interpret historical events is restricted by many epistemological factors (Gossman 29; Hutcheon, Poetics 89- 90). All historical inquiries function within certain ideological or political structures, and historians’ analysis is conditioned by the mode they use to conduct their investigation. At the other end of the spectrum, empiricists contend that in spite of these hermeneutic limitations, some interpretations produce more viable claims, are supported by evidence, and lead to different consequences in the present and the future (Appleby 255; Davis 116-17; Koselleck 10). These debates in the field of historiography have produced a significant impact on literary studies, and the value of historical fiction and poetry has been reconsidered and challenged. In spite of numerous differences in their perspectives on writing about history, Margaret Atwood, Anna Akhmatova, and Lina Kostenko have a similar understanding of the poet’s role. They depict past events and write women into the archive, filling gaps in the historical record. Atwood and Kostenko focus on the colonial past in Canada and Ukraine and the importance of overcoming its legacy in order to create a distinct national identity; Akhmatova explores the issue of moral responsibility before the victims of Stalin’s repressions and warns against repeating such historical mistakes. 2 One of the main premises of relativism is that history is a contested field where different ideological and political forces operate. Hayden White asserts, “Commitment to a particular form of knowledge predetermines the kinds of generalizations one can make about the present world, the kinds of knowledge one can have of it, and hence the kinds of projects one can legitimately conceive for changing that present or for maintaining it in its present form indefinitely” (21). According to this perspective, historians select past events, organize them in a certain order, and use narrative elements – inaugural, terminating, and transitional – to present them as a coherent structure. Evidence is often insufficient, and scholars inevitably analyze historical circumstances from their own political, social, and cultural vantage points. Although these concerns are undoubtedly relevant, such awareness of our epistemological restrictions should not act as a deterrent to our interpretation of the past and understanding its significance for the present and the future. To some extent, history is shaped by contemporary motives, and its boundaries are renegotiated and redrawn. Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob state, “Successive generations of scholars do not so much revise historical knowledge as they reinvest it with contemporary interest. […] New versions of old narratives are not arbitrary exercises of historical imagination, but the consequence of the changing interest from cumulative social experience” (265). A historical account can be defined as a dialectic relationship between the historian’s interpretation and past events. Still, these accounts hold intrinsic social and moral value that is emphasized 3 both by relativists who warn against “moral agnosticism” (White 433) and empiricists. Works of history are as important as the events themselves and become material practices, functions in the field of discourse that acquire relative autonomy. As Atwood observes, “The words continue their journey” (Poems 105) and contribute to consolidating or challenging the existing balance of power. Producing their works in disparate historical contexts, the Canadian, Russian, and Ukrainian poets create female protagonists who not only take part in political events but have the ability to portray them. Atwood, Akhmatova, and Kostenko assign their characters roles that often transcend the limitations of their respective time periods and expectations of women writers. The three authors present historical occurrences from a female perspective, focusing on the losses brought about by wars and revolutions and the physical and emotional destruction inflicted on women who lost their family members in the course of such ruptures in history. Atwood’s protagonist in The Journals of Susanna Moodie is a nineteenth-century author who could depict her life in the wilderness due to her privileged social status and education (for example, in comparison with working class women, particularly those of non-British background). Akhmatova’s lyrical “I” equates her memories with historical records, narrating her experience as a grieving mother and writing for those women whose relatives were executed, imprisoned, or exiled during Stalin’s reign of terror. Kostenko’s protagonist in her novel in verse Marusia Churai 4 writes songs about battles and the wars of liberation belonging to the sphere of exclusively male interests. The poets foreground the process of representing historical events and emphasize their characters’ creative gift that allows them to generate their version of history which occupies various positions in relation to the official master narrative, disrupting or supporting and legitimizing it. Each ethical