Table Of Content

Ukrainian Erotomaniac Fictions: First Postindependence Wave This work explores the aggressive sexualization of the Ukrainian cultural mainstream after the collapse of the USSR as a counterreaction to the Soviet state’s totalitarian, repressive politics of the body. While the book’s introduction includes concise sections on pornified cultural forms such as advertising, mass media, visual art, and film, its major focus is on textual production that has contributed significantly to the literary explosion in Ukraine, which began in the 1990s. Drawing on cultural, postcolonial, feminist, and gender theories, the book examines trans- gressive potentials of the erotic under postcolonial, postcommunist, and post-totalitarian conditions. It offers insight into the convoluted dialec- tics between the imported conventions of Western “porno-chic” and the received oppressive Soviet gender and sexual ideologies. Within a broad historical and cultural framework, the study considers writers’ engage- ments in dialogues with their own tradition and colonial legacy, as well as with a variety of transcultural flows. By bringing together diverse erotomaniac fictions, Maryna Romanets charts the ways in which they are embedded in the processes of Ukraine’s cultural decolonization. Maryna Romanets is a Professor in the Department of English at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada. She is the author of Anamorphosic Texts and Reconfigured Visions: Improvised Tradi- tions in Contemporary Ukrainian and Irish Literature and coeditor of Beauty, Violence, Representation. Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature 52 Unlocking the Poetry of W. B. Yeats Heart Mysteries Daniel Tompsett 53 Collage and Literature The Persistence of Vision Scarlett Higgins 54 Connecting Moments in Chinese and European Modernisms Chunjie Zhang 55 The Stability of Laughter The Problem of Joy in Modernist Literature James Nikopoulos 56 Altered Consciousness in the Twentieth Century Jake Poller 56 Henry James and the Media Arts of Modernity Commercial Cosmopolitanism June Hee Chung 57 Hermeneutic Ontology in Gadamer and Woolf The Being of Art and the Art of Being Adam Noland 58 Ukrainian Erotomaniac Fictions: First Postindependence Wave Maryna Romanets For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com Taras Polataiko, Eadweard Muybridge, Human Locomotion Plate 356/5, 2005. C-print, edition of 5. 36ʺ x 24ʺ. Photo courtesy of the artist. © Taras Polataiko. Ukrainian Erotomaniac Fictions: First Postindependence Wave Maryna Romanets First published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of Maryna Romanets to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Komolova-Romaneëtìs§, Maryna, author. Title: Ukrainian erotomaniac fictions : first postindependence wave / Maryna Romanets. Description: New York : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Routledge studies in twentieth-century literature | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019005922 (print) | LCCN 2019007703 (ebook) | ISBN 9781351022187 (Ebook) | ISBN 9781351022163 (ePub) | ISBN 9781351022170 (Pdf) | ISBN 9781351022156 (Mobi) | ISBN 9781138496316 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781351022187 (ebk) Subjects: LCSH: Ukrainian literature—20th century—History and criticism. | Sex in literature. | Sex in mass media. | Literature and society—Ukraine—History—20th century. | Ukraine— Civilization—Western influences. Classification: LCC PG3916.2 (ebook) | LCC PG3916.2 .K5745 2019 (print) | DDC 891.7/9093538—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019005922 ISBN: 978-1-138-49631-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-02218-7 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra In memory of my parents Liudmyla and Oleksa Romanets Contents List of Figures xi Acknowledgments xiii Note on Translation and Transliteration xv 1 Introduction to Erotomaniac Fictions 1 2 Nationalist–Masochist Woman, Impotent Man, and Counter- Erotics: Pol′ovi doslidzhennia z ukraïns′koho seksu [Fieldwork in Ukrainian sex] 24 3 A Guide to the Art of (Post-)Soviet Pleasure: Pokalchuk’s Taxonomies 43 4 Carnivalesque Mystifications, National Icon, and Orientalist Dreams: Zhytiie haremnoie [Life in the harem] as Historiographic Metafiction 61 5 The Monstrosity of Desire and the Delights of Carnal Hell: Shevchuk’s Neo-Baroque Angst 79 6 Indecent Transpositions and Displacements of the National Imaginary by the Kapranov Brothers 98 7 Pornographized Desecration of the Socialist Realist Canon: Poderviansky the Bricoleur 117 8 Postscript 139 Bibliography 161 Index 181