Information on the thesis

In  the  course  of  the  last  20  years  Ukrainian  literature  has  faced  the
problem  of  self-determination  in  a  post-totalitarian,  post-colonial,  and  post-
modern situation.  A literary  anthology as a genre representative of the literary
process  has  become  increasingly  popular  in  Ukraine:  whereas  in  the  first  110
years of the literary anthology in Ukraine (1881-1991) there appeared about 60
anthologies in total, in the last twenty years the number was four times greater.
An anthology was understood as a collection of literary works compiled accor-
ding  to  the  intent  and  choice  of  the  compiler,  not  directly  dependent  on  edu-
cational needs, and designed to reflect separate literary phenomena or literature
as a whole, depending on the principle of compilation.
The  rise  of  the  anthology  as  a  modern  literary  and  publishing  genre  is
connected to the era of modernism and, even more, to the national modern project.
Scholars have sought to identify the essential features of the literary anthology: it is
always a literary and anthropological project, presupposing the restructuring of the
original  material  according  to  a  policy  that  involves  a  hierarchy  of  values  and
principles of selection. Anthologies as a literary collections do not merely reflect
the past; they also are a means for interpreting the present and contemplating the
future (J. W. Goethe, W. Benjamin, J. Baudrillard, W. Muensterberger, S. Pearce,
S. Steward, P. van der Grijp, J. Clifford, W. Germano, A. Olsson, J. R. Di Leo,
B. Groys,  M.  Iampolski,  K.  Pomian,  B.  Frydrychak,  R.  Tańchuk,  A.  Assmann,
Y. Sánchez, H. Essmann, B. Korte, A. Ferry etc.).
In  contrast  to  literary  history,  an  anthology  guided  by  the  principle  of
cultural memory always begins with the here and now. It does so in response to a
pragmatic desire or need to compile some (meta)literary plot that will delimit a
significant past and a cultural space, belonging to which will define the borders
of our us. In this way, the borders (not only linguistic, but also stylistic, aesthetic
and ideological) of  the  national literature‟s  self-identification  were set. But al-
ready at the beginning of the twentieth century a number of other starting points
were selected: the death of Shevchenko, or 1917 as the year of October Revolu-
tion, or 1918 as the year of publication of Pavlo Tychyna‟s „Soniachni Klarnety‟.
By  the  beginning  of  the  1990s  a  new  generation  of  readers  encountered  the
problem  of  choosing  their  own  significant  past.  On  the  other  hand,  literature
strove to overcome past losses by returning whole genres and styles to literature,
and recovering the memory of tragic historical events. This kind of literature was
represented  by  numerous  anthologies  of  works  by  Ukrainian  authors  who  had
died as victims of political persecution, and by political prisoners. Searching for
a  significant  past  and  paying  the  debt  of  memory  superseded  almost  all  other
organizing principles in Ukrainian anthologies of the 1990s.
The  newest  anthologies  also  demostrate  an  intention  to  produce  an
integrated  image  of  the  country  (or  region)  through  literary  representations  of
space. The texts are intended to express the relation of literature to landscape or,
more  precisely,  to  place,  as  the  question  is  not  only  one  of  scenery  but  of  the
symbolic meanings attached to it. To some extent this predicament is related to the
definition of national literature as a literature written in a single national language.
Only since the beginning of the 2010s the deviations from it have been observed.
On  the  one  hand,  Ukrainian  literature  cannot  define  its  place  within  its
own country. Yet, on the other, it is not constrained by national borders. During
the twentieth century the Ukrainian emigration‟s path from exile to diaspora has
been documented by émigré anthologies. The existence of a diaspora literature as
a separate literary phenomenon has contributed to the generally accepted view of
the Ukrainian literary process as a two-way movement, or as a phenomenon with
a life in two worlds. But the new literary situation is characterised by what could
be described as a „new homogeneity.‟
In  the  early  2010s  the  basic  features  of  the  anthology  as  a  genre  have
drastically  changed.  Anthologies  dedicated  to  particular  topics  have  emerged;
many owe their existence not to the collection and selection of existing literary
works, but to the compilation of works written on demand. They presented a new
conception  of  the  idea  of  the  literary,  which  is  now  seen  as  tolerating  wide
variation, accepting accident as a structuring principle, and accommodating ideas
that at first might seem wholly marginal.
Finding itself at the end of the twentieth century Ukrainian literature faced the
problem of discovering an identity for itself. From the end of the 1990s onward the
search for a usable tradition was accompanied by a sense of obligation in anthologies
to  highlight  one‟s  own  modernity,  delimit  its  periods  and  define  its  constitutive
properties. Finally, at the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century
the  anthology  has  become  a  performative  genre,  built  on  the  principle  not  of
selection, but of the project – thus orienting itself towards the immediate future and
becoming a space of experimentation for multifarious identities.
Key words: anthology, collection, meta-genre, cultural memory, literary
anthropology, modernism, postmodernism.