Untitled

LATVIJAS UNIVERSITÂTES RAKSTI. 2004. 666. sçj.: LITERATÛRZINÂTNE, FOLKLORISTIKA,
MÂKSLA, 59.–67. lpp.
Female Identity in the Postcolonial Situation:
The Case of the Ukraine
(Field Research in Ukrainian Sex by Oksana Zabuzhko)
Sievieðu identitâte postkoloniâlâ situâcijâ:
Ukrainas gadîjums
Natalia Monakhova (Ukraine)
Kyiv Laboratory of Gender
and PhD Program in Comparative Literature,
National University of Kyiv–Mohyla Academy
23/9 Khoryva str., apt. 13, Kyiv 04071 Ukraine
e–mail: natalia@cvu.kiev.ua; nmonakhova@yahoo.com
Using key concepts of postcolonial theory, I argue that they are applicable to the contemporary
Ukrainian context and to Ukrainian literature. I prove this hypothesis by applying these
concepts (in particular the notion of a subaltern) to Oksana Zabuzhko’s Field Research in
Ukrainian Sex (1994), demonstrating that postcolonialism can provide both an explanation for
various cultural formations in the Ukraine and a framework for interrogating and subverting
them, as well as open space for female self–identification, which is to say for topics which
have been traditionally marginalized and silenced.
Keywords: postcolonial theory; Ukraine; female identity; national identity; autobiography.
For Ukrainians, the early nineties, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union and
rapid social and political changes in the Eastern bloc, were also a period of a radical
reconceptualization of their national identity. What makes this a special process within
Ukrainian culture, compared with other East European countries which underwent
similar processes, is a strong feeling of coloniality, of a post–imperial legacy which
still influences and deforms the mentality of the people. Field Research in Ukrainian
Sex (1994) by Oksana Zabuzhko was a first attempt not only to reflect this feeling
but to analyze it on a literary level and thus not only to turn the colonial powers
against themselves but to transform them into a powerful source of the
reconceptualization of Ukrainians, and in particular of Ukrainian women. In this paper,
grounding my discussion in feminist postcolonial criticism and relying upon the
notion of the “subaltern” proposed by G.C. Spivak in her essay “Can the Subaltern
Speak?”, I will argue that the protagonist of the novel, Oksana, establishes herself as
a representative of her own nation who tries to give voice to the experience of being
a woman in a society disfigured by famine, purges, and a repressive colonial legacy.
I will argue that re–constructing herself and her life as an embodiment of Ukrainian
national identity, Oksana constructs herself as a voice coming from the margins which
becomes a center of radical openness.
From the very moment it was published, Field Research in Ukrainian Sex was
regarded by the public as an account of one of the author’s love affairs because the
novel is blatantly autobiographical. Besides, its unusual literary form which plays