Portrety novoho stolìttja : Pošuky ìdentyčnostì krìz’ pìznannja mìsc’ ì mìst
| Title in English | Portraits of the New Century : Search for Identity through Knowledge of Places and Cities |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The article pays attention to the latest novels and the search for self-reflection by getting to know new places and cities where the characters live. For this purpose, the novels Home for Dom by Ukrainian authoress Viktoriya Amelina and I'll Wake up in Shibuya by the Czech Anna Cima. Home for Dom is one of many similar works which, in today's world, deal with the topic of looking into the past, and the formation of national consciousness through a foreign culture. People of no self-identification have been visited in their world: they are not aware of their origin and kin, their identity is that of a Soviet Union citizen and therefore artificial. Made to live in a city with a different culture, that Soviet identity becomes superfluous at the turn of the 20th century. In the Czech novel, the process of trying to understand oneself occurs through a confrontation with another nation's culture, including its language and literature. The two mentioned novels may help the youngest generation of readers grasp their identity. Incessant searching for oneself by way of other worlds, other cities and other people is probably the only feature that current Ukrainian and Czech literature have in common: it is likely to be a matter of generational closeness. All the rest is very different and the reasons for this are to be found in the past, namely in the history and traditions of each nation. It is evident that the young generation of writers increasingly tends to deal with personal problems, and individualism prevails in their writing. However, Ukrainian authors much more often interfere in the social sphere, and thus their writing reflects the socio-political aspect of life in greater degree, which makes one look for national identity signs in Ukrainian prose. |