Contemporary Russophone Literature: History, Memory, and Language

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel explores themes of history, memory, and language in contemporary Russophone literature.

Natalia Rulyova examines the historical turn in post-Soviet Russophone fiction, especially depictions of ethnic minorities. She discusses a range of novels, including works by Narine Abgaryan, Natalia Ilishkina, Hamid Ismailov, Guzel Yakhina. Rulyova discusses how these writers treat ideas of authenticity and accuracy, how they use historical detail and setting, and how they use literary tools to transcend ‘the truth – reality distinction’ (White 2005), as well as mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion.

Miriam Finkelstein focuses on the fragility of memory as a key feature of the poet Semyon Khanin’s lyrical oeuvre. Taking her cue from the central metaphor in Khanin's work of memory as a badly damaged and disintegrating statue, Finkelstein explores tension between stability, the durability of culture and cultural memory and their fragility in Khanin's work, which she analyzes against the backdrop of Latvia’s situation as a post-imperial state.

Connor Doak considers contemporary anti-war Russophone poets have used verse in order to engage in a moral reckoning with the Russian language, culture, and history in the light of the war. He charts a dysphoric use of language in contemporary Russophone poetry, a distrust of conventional poetic form, and a representation of the body as dysfunctional. Poems themselves becomes bodies that bear the imprint of war, testimonials that bear witness to the struggle to rescue the Russian language from the current regime. Poets to be discussed may include Ol'ga Zondberg, Vera Pavlova, Liudmila Khersonka, and Sergei Shereshevskii.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 21st Century

Chair

• Matilda Hicklin, U of Bristol (UK)

Papers

• A Historical Turn in Post-Soviet Russophone Fiction - Nataliya E Rulyova, U of Birmingham (UK)

• Anxiety of Post-Imperial Memory: Semyon Khanin’s Poetics of Fragility - Miriam Finkelstein, U of Konstanz (Germany)

• 'Choking on a word': Body, Language, and Form in Contemporary Russophone Anti-War Poetry - Connor Brian Doak, U of Bristol (UK)

Discussant

• Yelena Furman, UCLA