National Narrative in Ukrainian Historical Novels from Post-Stalinist to Post-Independence Texts by Anna Carr, B.A., M.A. (National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”). A PhD thesis submitted to the Department of International Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney. November, 2015 2 Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 5 Summary .................................................................................................................................................. 6 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 8 Chapter 1. Literature Review. Contextualising the National Narrative ................................................. 13 1.1. On the Definition of the National Narrative .......................................................................... 13 1.2. Post-Colonialism and Ukrainian National Narrative ............................................................. 17 1.3. What National Narrative Is Not ............................................................................................. 20 1.3.1. National Narrative Is Not a Myth .................................................................................. 21 1.3.2. National Narrative: Between History and Memory ....................................................... 36 1.4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 47 Chapter 2. Elusive Utterance: The Locations of the National Narrative in the Novel .......................... 49 2.1. Introduction to Methodological Problematics ............................................................................ 49 2.2. Methodology of Analysis. General Perspective and Task .......................................................... 51 2.3. Post-Colonial National Narrative – a Desire to Write and a Story ............................................. 56 2.4. The Location of Narrative .......................................................................................................... 62 2.4.1. Three Levels of Textual Interpretation ................................................................................ 62 2.4.2. The Reconstruction of the National Narrative ..................................................................... 63 2.4.3. Syuzhet and Fabula as the Types of Organisation of the National Narrative ...................... 67 2.5. The Nature of the Narrative in the Late 20th Century ................................................................. 72 2.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 75 Chapter 3. The Politics of the National Narrative: Generic Implications of Historical Novels ............ 77 3.1. Introduction. The Novel as a Carrier of the National Narrative ................................................. 77 3.2. National Narrative in Historical Novels: Channels of Transmission.......................................... 79 3.2.1. Historical Panorama of the Period: 1950s – 2000s .............................................................. 79 3.2.2. Positivistic Knowledge. The Novel of History .................................................................... 83 3.2.3. Remembering and Forgetting in the Myth. The novels of culture ....................................... 84 3.2.4. Memory. The novels of Commemoration and Forgetting ................................................... 87 3.4. Generic Transformations. Classical Historical Novel, Historical Romance, Historiographic Metafiction ........................................................................................................................................ 97 3.4.1. Four Types of Historical Fiction .......................................................................................... 98 3.4.2. The Novels of History ......................................................................................................... 99 3.4.3. Ukrainian Historical Romance .......................................................................................... 101 3.4.4. The Novels of Culture ....................................................................................................... 103 3.4.5. The Novels of Memory ...................................................................................................... 105 3.5. Conclusion. The Novels in the Paradigms of the Past .............................................................. 108 3 Chapter 4. ‘Progenitor Narrative’, or the Way to Modern Ukrainian National Narrative in Iurii Mushketyk’s Haidamaky ..................................................................................................................... 111 4.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 111 4.2. National Narrative in Mushketyk’s Haidamaky. The Story of Defeat and Restriction ............. 113 4.3. How to Read Haidamaky: The Question of the Fabula ............................................................ 114 4.4. How to Find the National Narrative .......................................................................................... 117 4.5. The Structure of the National Narrative. On the Principal Motifs ............................................ 120 4.5.1. The Motif of Suffering ....................................................................................................... 120 4.5.2. The Lost Golden Age ......................................................................................................... 120 4.5.3. New Struggle, New Heroes ................................................................................................ 122 4.5.4. Anti-Heroes and Their Betrayal ......................................................................................... 124 4.6. The Ideology of Form. Stable and Open Narrative of Socialist Realism .................................. 126 4.6.1. The Power of the Narrative’s Flow, or Why Its Form Matters .......................................... 127 4.6.2. From Form to Political Meaning: Oppression and Its Textual Expressions ...................... 129 4.7. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 132 Chapter 5. Vast Patriarchy: Pavlo Zahrenel’nyi and His National Narratives – Ievpraksiia, Roksolana, Death in Kyiv ....................................................................................................................................... 133 5.1. On Similarities, Distinctions and the Need to Identify Their Source ........................................ 133 5.2. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 135 5.2. Contextualisation. Death in Kyiv and Other Novels of Pavlo Zahrenel’nyi ............................. 137 5.3. Ievpraksiia versus Roksolana: Women in Power and the National Narrative .......................... 140 5.4. Death in Kyiv on the Move from the Socialist Realist Narrative .............................................. 147 5.5. On motifs. A Strong Leader .................................................................................................. 154 5.6. The Motif of Golden Age. Kyiv as a Lost Paradise .............................................................. 158 5.7. The Motif of Failure. Kyiv as a Traitor ................................................................................. 164 5.8. The National Narrative in Death in Kyiv. Consolidation .......................................................... 166 5.8.1. Princes and Beggars. The Correlation of Power ................................................................ 167 5.9. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 168 Chapter 6. Punishment, Power, and Writing: Valerii Shevchuk’s Recipe to Avoid Subjection .......... 171 6.1. Contextualisation ...................................................................................................................... 172 6.1.1. The Correlation of Politics and Culture in Three Leaves ................................................... 173 6.1.2. The Power and Dimensions of Cultural History. Implications for the National Narrative 175 6.1.3. Individual, Writing, and Time. On the Structure of the Novel .......................................... 180 6.2. Illia Turchynovs’kyi .................................................................................................................. 184 6.2.1. The Domain of the Spirit as the Golden Age of the Nation ............................................... 184 6.2.2. The Internal Struggle with Subjection ............................................................................... 185 6.2.3. Illia Turchynovs’kyi. Baroque Freedom ............................................................................ 189 6.3. Conclusion 1. On the National Narrative in the First Leaf ....................................................... 197 4 Chapter 7. Punishment and Decline in Shevchuk’s Narrative: The Rest of the Puzzle