Political Subjectivities in Russia and Ukraine through the Lens of Post-Soviet Literature

ABSTRACT Through an analysis of post-Soviet literature, grassroot movements and political mass protests this dissertation explores various modes of political subjectivity as they have developed in the Russian Federation and Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It compares: The Moscoviad (1997) by Yuri Andrukhovych and Generation P (1999) by Victor Pelevin; Anarchy in the Ukr (2005) by Serhii Zhadan and Sankya (2006) by Zakhar Prilepin; The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (2009) by Oksana Zabuzhko and Jacob’s Ladder (2015) by Lyudmila Ulitskaya. The dissertation discusses the uses of rhetorical language and protest art as deployed in mass protest actions in Ukraine and Russia by examining the events of the Orange Revolution (2004-05), the Revolution of Dignity (2013-14) in Ukraine, and the White Revolution and some other mass protests in Russia (2011-13). The dissertation also considers: the relation of social epistemology (postmodernism, nominalism, post-truth) to political subjectivity; the relations of wounded dignity and resentment to nostalgia for the Soviet past; and the possible causes for the failure of liberalism to take root in post-Soviet space.