АФРИКАНСЬКА ДІАСПОРА У США: МІФ ПРО ПОВЕРНЕННЯ В ДРАМАТУРГІЧНОМУ АРАНЖУВАННІ

he paper sets out to explore the ways the ‘myth of return’ as an inalienable constituent of any diaspora definition has been represented in African American drama over the past century. Based on the research by leading diaspora scholars, such as Robin Cohen, William Safran, Tom Holt and others, the paper questions the grounds for treating African American community as a diaspora since, while fitting in with many diaspora characteristics singled out by scholars, it does not seem to meet several other requirements. Nevertheless, with necessary reservations, it is believed that the term can be (and is) applied to African Americans. The paper proceeds to trace the historical dynamics of Black Americans’ attitude to their ancient Motherland in the context of Back-to-Africa movement, Garveyism, and globalization processes. Close reading of Theodore Ward’s play Big White Fog (1938), Joseph Walker’s The River Niger (1971), Lorraine Hansberry’s Les Blancs (1973), and Lynn Nottage’s Ruined (2009) substantiates the conclusion that the motif of return to Africa took various forms in Black drama depending on the dominant ideology and cultural and psychological climate prevailing in Afro-America during a certain era. While nationalist Garveyan movement in the first third of the 20th century made it possible to portray it as a plausible, though not very probable option, the further development of the African diaspora in the USA tended to transfer its implementation to imaginary, spiritual and/or metaphoric planes, and in the epoch of globalization it increasingly relies upon the technique of setting the action in Africa. It can be argued, on the whole, that on a large scale “return to Africa” has never been considered as a viable universal option for Black Americans, but rather as a reverse argument intended to push them towards searching for new and better strategies aimed at winning justice and equality in the United States.