Holocaust Memory in the Prose of Yeva Biss

• In Event: Prešov as Peripheral Metropolis: Memory and Transcultural Identity

Abstract

Yeva Biss/Eva Bissová (1920-2005) was a prominent Ukrainian-Rusyn writer from the Prešov region whose works straddle the line of Czechoslovak, Ukrainian, and Carpatho-Rusyn literatures. Through her polyvocal prose, where Russian, Slovak, and German sections interrupt an otherwise Ukrainian narrative, Biss performs her linguistic hybridity reflecting the socio-political context. Notably, her hybridity extends beyond the use of language to an underlying theme. While Holocaust memory is a common, theme in Central European literatures, it remained largely censored in Soviet Ukraine, making Biss’s engagement with it in Ukrainian particularly striking. This paper explores the place of Biss's holocaust narratives within both Czechoslovak and Ukrainian literary traditions of the time. It examines how her idiosyncratic works navigate and reflect multiple literary traditions and asks whether they belong to a particular canon or constitute one of their own. By addressing these questions and utilizing relevant archival sources this research seeks to illuminate Biss’s complex, hybrid literary identity and position her within the broader landscape of Eastern/Central European literatures.

Author

• Ali Karakaya, Stanford U