The Kyiv Text: Evolution, Persistence, Subversion

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel examines the Kyiv text as a phenomenon not less coherent than established discourses about other Slavic/East European cities, focusing on particular on the Gothic and the ironic elements and their potentially subversive, perhaps even liberatory power. The papers span the period of two centuries, from the early nineteenth to the early twenty-first, and highlights diverse genres, from canonical Romantic tales to Soviet-era film adaptations of pre-revolutionary Ukrainian drama to contemporary mass culture writing. Yes across this variety of cultural forms, a continuity can be traced with a surprising persistence. What are some of the key enduring features of the Kyiv text, its meta-mythology? How is it different from other types of literary urbanism? These are some of the questions the panel seeks to elucidate.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 20th Century

Chair

• Tamara Hundorova, National Academy of Sciences (Ukraine)

Papers

• Somov’s 'The Witches of Kyiv' as an Inspiration for Gogol’s 'A Terrible Vengeance' - Mariia Shishmareva, U of Kansas

• Conquest through Deception in the Film 'Chasing Two Hares' - Murad Jalilov, U of Kansas

• A Supernatural Manifestation of the Imperial Past: Lada Luzina’s Kyiv - Theodore Edgar Jefferies, U of Toronto (Canada)

Discussant

• Taras Koznarsky, U of Toronto (Canada)