Transit culture and postcolonial trauma

Novels by Serhiy Zhadan, Oksana Zabuzhko, and Lina Kostenko became iconic works of Ukrainian literature in the early 2000s. In this book, Tamara Gundorova analyzes them and a number of other symbolic texts and cultural phenomena between the two Maidans through the prism of three main themes: post-colonial trauma, post-totalitarian consciousness and post-memory.

Who is a "loser" in Ukrainian literature? How do Ukrainian authors outline "their" Europe? Why are family epics of the 2000s becoming museums of memory? What is Chernobyl about? And, in the end, how did Verka Serdyuchka become an emblem of transit culture?

The author analyzes the post-Soviet cultural transit, resentment and intergenerational memory, examines the "last Soviet generation" that reclaims the right to national history, and analyzes the Independence generation as a cultural archetype.