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MEMORY STUDIES OF MODERN UKRAINIAN NOVEL // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2015. Issue 3 (9). P. 107-112

This paper studies a modern Ukrainian novel using the approach worked out by so-called Memory studies. The use of commemoration in fiction is touched upon as well. The article presents the analyses of the novel “If” written by the famous Ukrainian novelist Iren Rozdobud'ko as a practice of the Soviet Union commemoration. The novel was chosen because of the strong and clear opposition of the Past and the Present that allows treating it as a kind of memory place. The work presented can be used as a basis for further analyses of fiction as a type of commemoration. It’s known that one of the most important types of commemoration is the use of the dates; the choice of the dates can influence much on the perception of the work. So, I. Rozdobud'ko emphases on the several events of the 1980s. They are the Olympic Games 1980 and the very beginning of the Afghanistan conflict. These historic events are presented in opposition: a happy one and a sad one. It should be underlined that the author uses no historic names and concrete dates. The other two events opposed are the cultural ones: the death of Vladimir Vysotskiy and so-called All-Union Saturday. While analyzing the work we have come to the conclusion the commemoration effect is reached by presenting the characters’ emotions and thoughts though their dialogues and the monologues of the main character Veronica. The main character, a thirty year old journalist Veronica Ivchenko found herself in 1980 when she was only seven. She perceived everything happened at the time being adult. It helps her to rethink all the events by the mind of an adult person. That leads her to the conclusion that the beginning of the Afghanistan conflict was more important for the people than the Olympic Game, the death of V. Vysotskiy shocked the society, but nobody remembered about the All-Union Saturday. We would like to note that the “entertaining material” used by I. Rozdobud'ko allowed to expose the moral degradation reasons of the modern society in the former Soviet Union countries in the early twenty-first century.

Keywords: Memory studies, “places of memory”, commemoration, the collective memory