From sovietology to postcoloniality
Poland and Ukraine from a postcolonial perspective
Korek, Janusz
2007
The idea of applying a postcolonial perspective to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe may seem controversial. Opponents of the idea empha-sise that we are not dealing here with classical colonies, which are distant and lie across the seas, in relation to the imperial centre.
We can, however, accept the essence of research into imperialism and co-lonialism as an attempt to understand how the imperial centre of authority aims to subordinate to itself or dominate the territories desired by itself.
Just as with gender theories, which read known canons anew and carry out, for example, new historical analyses while bearing in mind hetero-nor-mative structures, so too postcolonial theorists carry out new readings of known canons from the perspective of the position of authority - the op-pressed : the imperialist. We can look in a similar way at the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe, at the recently fallen Soviet Empire, and research the imperialist discourses of the “West” on the subject of the Eu-ropean “East” as well as re-evaluate the work of Slavonic and Soviet Studies that was deformed by the atmosphere of the Cold War.
In this book, readers will find analyses of literary, social and political phe-nomena seen through the prism of various aspects of postcolonial theo-ry, albeit with a common denominator. This common denominator is the question of identity: from the question of national identity in the context of contemporary political processes in Ukraine to the problems of individual identity – Otherness, Foreignness, Uniqueness – addressed by Polish litera-ture and analysed from a philosophical perspective.
Huddinge : Södertörns högskola, 2007. s. 272.
ISBN 978-91-89315-72-3
Södertörn Academic Studies, 1650-433X; 32
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