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What kind of preconceptions do you expect students to bring into your course? I suppose that students will be surprised that a developed feminist current existed in Ukrainian litera ture. Students and even serious scholars often see Ukrainian literature as a literature that never had any serious conflicts or struggles, in which a younger generation of writers took over the traditions of an older one and in which certain tendencies and traditions were developed and enriched from generation to another. I see, and want to show in my course, the irreconcilable conflicts between various authors and generations and between male and female writers. I want to enliven Ukrainian literature so that students will see that it was dramatic not only in a political sense, but in an internal psychlolgical sense. It is a literature that should not be oversimplified by literary historians. When did feminist discourse develop in Ukraine? Feminist discourse began to develop with the publi cation of Natalia Kobryn’ska’s and Olena Pchilka’s first narratives and with their almanac Pershyi vinok, during the 1880’s. It did not become truly interesting until a decade later, when Kobylian’ska published her feminist short stories and novels which by 1903 were all but condemned as pornography by Ukraine’s chief populist critic and ideologist, Serhii lefremov. Equally interesting is the feminist discourse of Lesia Ukrainka. In the course, however, I will also analyze anti-feminist discourse. Vir ginia Woolf once said that the reaction to a woman’s voice is no less interesting than the voice itself. Accord ingly, the reaction of such key figures as Franko or Ste- fanyk as well as the anti-feminism or misogyny of Khvy- I’ovyi, Pidmohyl’nyi, Semenko or Sosiura will be addressed. Who were first feminists, women and men, and by whom were they influenced? As I have already mentioned, Natalia Kobryn’ska, Olena Pchilka, Lesia Ukrainka, Ol’ha Kobylian’ska. Those who influenced them is a vast subject. I will only say that the influence came from the West and includes, above all, John Stuart Mill and Henrik Ibsen. Paradoxi cally, Nietzsche, though a known misogynist, also played a role in this. Ol’ha Kobylian’ska’s heroes were strong Nietzschean women and weak, feeble and spineless men. Did the first published women writers turn to literature as a tool for social reform? And which literary genres were most effective for expressing a feminist perspec tive? Literature was never the means for any one thing, and the more so for women. Women were concerned with socialism, but the question of nationalism was no less acute. The most pressing question, however, was individualism as it related to a woman’s freedom to choose and her own sexuality (especially with regard to Kobylian’ska). Genre did not play a role. All genres were rerpre- sented including short stories, poetry, drama, novels, and essays. How have women been traditionally depicted in works of fiction? On this subject, which one can recast as “male writ ings about women," it would be worthwhile to write an entire book. Two traditional readings exist. The first is Woman as a positive heroine, a non-descript, second- rate person who creates a background for the activities and life of men. The other reading is Woman as object of violence. Archetypical of this is Storozhenko’s histo rical account of Marko Prokliatyi (Marko the Damned) in which the main hero — a cossack — simply chops off women’s heads. An object of violence, the raped woman appears in a great number of works by the most con temporary Ukrainian prose writers. In your article “Between Feminism and Nationalism: New Women’s Groups in Ukraine,” you mention the ancient cult of Berehynia — the main goddess of home coziness, the cult of the mother (keeper of the family and nation) and the cult of the child. Do you think that today’s women are still held up to the codes of this cult? As concerns the cult of Berehynia today, it is cer tainly the prencipal ideology of the majority of women’s organizations and of the state as a whole. A number of commissions and institutions dealing with women’s issues — specifically maternity and family — exist in state structures and in parlament. It is officially assumed that a woman will be above all a mother, a housewife and a guardian of the family. Exactly the same opinions are held by a nationally conscious section of the Ukrain ian population, including intellectuals. I find this partic ularly sad. The very existence of this cult tells us much about the conservative natute of Ukrainian society. What can you tell us about contemporary Ukrainian women writers, literary scholars, critical theorists, and publishers? Do you see influences of feminism in their work? For the most part, Ukrainian women writers are not feminists. They either remain within the parameters of the cult of Berehynia, extolling their motherhood or their devoted and faithful love for their husbands; or they take up a masculine pose, renouncing their wom anhood, longing to be “strong”, almost macho, equals of men. Symptomatically, the brightest literary figure of the sixties, Lina Kostenko, was not and is not a feminist, and remains outside the feminist discourse. But I can name several contemporary critics and writers for whom feminism is important, among them, Oksana Zabuzhko, the author of P ol’ove doslidzhennia z ukrain’skoho seksu (Field Research in Ukrainian Sexuality, 1995). 12 ’НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ", ТРАВЕНЬ 1996 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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