Jewish Images of Ukrainian Literature of the 20th and Early 21st Centuries

The article examines the variety of Jewish images in Ukrainian literature and their evolution from the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. In particular, the article talks about the characterization and the analysis of new Jewish types in the context of imagological discourse, the specificity of Jewish characters’ depiction at a certain period by different authors, the interaction of Self and Other. Interest in Jewish images in recent and modern Ukrainian literature is due to their uniqueness in relation to the period of the early USSR and the early period after its collapse, as well as clearly increased attention to Jewish images of the past but not the modern ones. The analysis focuses mainly on modern and postmodern texts, bypassing socialist realism, and in the end, covers a text with metamodern features. The research material are V. Pidmohylnyi’s novel “A Little Drama” (1929), M. Khvylovyi’s short story “Room ch.2” (1921–1923), S. Maidanska’s novel “Earthquake” (1994), O. Zabuzhko’s short story “The Girls” (1998), V. Schneider’s novel “Notes of a Village Jew” (1998) and A. Gruver’s novel “Her Empty Places” (2022). Most of the selected texts, despite their artistic and scientific value, were ignored earlier, which could lead to an atmosphere of detachment of literary motives from each other. The research is turned not only to the creative output of Ukrainian writers, but also to Ukrainian writers of Jewish origin to show the connection between the two cultures and compare the imagological features of the heteroimage and autoimage. It is influenced by the used metaphors and the way in which the historical and cultural realities of a certain period are reflected. The imagological concept of Jewishness and its authorial variability were separately considered. Also, the past, present, and future state of Jewish-Ukrainian cultural interaction is outlined, taking into account the tragic circumstances of today.