SEARCHING FOR THE SOURCES OF GOOD: THE IDENTITY OF AN EMIGRANT IN EMMA ANDIEVSKA’S “NOVEL ABOUT A GOOD PERSON”

The paper aims to highlight the issue of an emigrant’s identity in Emma Andievska’s “Novel about a Good Person,” particularly by demonstrating the peculiarities of the authorial techniques that combine the literary representation of the historical epoch with the exploration of philosophical issues. The theoretical frameworks and methodological premises for the research have been shaped by studies on personal and national identity as well as research works in the field of geopoetics. While placing the characters in the Mittenwald DP camp and allowing them to wander through time and space, the writer draws attention to the ‘hell’ of the Soviet totalitarian regime, which denies Ukrainian history and culture, accuses intellectuals of ‘bourgeois nationalism,’ and develops a campaign of denunciatory reports and policies that destroy personality. At the same time, the novel brings to the fore the collective image of Ukrainian emigration with its daily challenges—fear of repatriation commissions and Soviet spies—but also with the fullness of emigrants’ lives, including their love, creativity, lectures, philosophical discussions, and desire to preserve their human dignity. Deliberately blurring the boundaries between geographical coordinates and mental space, Emma Andievska reveals the hidden depths of human identity and traces the markers of national identity in the emigrant milieu (clothing items, folk songs and dances, archetypal and symbolic images). The mythologism of artistic thinking is manifested through various modi of hierophany, including references to folk beliefs, Eastern and ancient culture, Biblical motifs, and European literature. While searching for the sources of good, emigrants ponder over the divine nature of every human person. Goodness can be threatened by human fear and substitution of concepts. However, the characters try to find ‘the catalysts of good’ in the world and ultimately realize that it is the selfless help to the Other that fills the soul with light and enables one to share experience of goodness with another ‘good person.’