THE POSTCOLONIAL INTERPRETATION OF VOLODYMYR HZHYTSKYI’S NOVEL BY “THE BLACK LAKE”

Abstract

In the article, the unstable identity of the characters of the novel by V. Hzhytskyi “The Black Lake” it is analyzed.E. Said`s (Orientalism concept), H. Bgabgi`s (the idea of colonial mimicry) and E. Thompson`s researches (suggestion to consider literatures of the nations of the former Russian Empire and USSR as postcolonial) have served the methodological ground for the article. Doubting the lack of post-colonial discourse in the Ukrainian literature of the twentieth century, the author demonstrates that the heroes of the novel “The Black Lake”, like the author, at the same time feel that they belong to different cultures, being identified with the colonized and the colonizer.
The peculiarity of the novel is that the colonization is ambiguous: the advance of the Russian people beyond their ethnic territories in order to establish their power gets completely negative coverage, while the spread of Western civilization is seen as a progress.The novel is trying to destroy the authority of the Russian civilization, but claims the Western way of life as universal. Depiction of unstable identity contributes to consideration of the novel in a broader framework than the literature of protest against the foreign oppression. New ideas and objects’ image force to raise the question of its place in the canon of literature of the 1920s and topicality of revaluation of relationships between the nations of the former USSR in the present time.