The Act of Reading as a Rite of Passage: Iurii Andrukhovych's Rekreatsii

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw an intensive re-examination and change of long lasting cultural paradigms and value systems in Ukrainian culture. A period of transition and crisis, these years culminated in 1991 with the achievement of political independence and the constitution of Ukraine as a discrete political, economical and cultural entity. This event was preceded by diverse processes of transformation. One of the first social institutions to be affected was literature. The proliferation of dissenting voices that dared to condemn the politicization of culture was, perhaps, one of the most obvious and certain indications of the literary institution's intramural reorganization. Authors such as Oksana Zabuzhko, Iurii Andrukhovych, Viktor Neborak and others, clearly pronounced the necessity of re-conceptualizing the function of artists in society and declared, in a purely modernist manner, that art should not serve political and social ends. The challenge, as the dissenting authors saw it, was to return to literature its normal function. Zabuzhko felicitously phrased it thus: "the type [of literature] that could devote itself without any reservations to things 'eternal' (the only thing that ultimately interests art!), to primordial questions of love and death, to the essence of being human and to the meaning of life."' In this context, the publication of Andrukhovych's "scandalous" novella Rekreats,2 was a daring attempt, a real intellectual challenge. Given the historical moment and the complex narrative structure of the text itself,3 it is hardly surprising that Andrukhovych's work initiated a debate on the subject of its literary qualities and cultural value.4 As one critic pointed out, the readership at the time clearly split into two "opposing camps."5 On the one hand there were readers, representing predominantly the Diaspora, who expressed a clearly negative judgment. In their opinion, the novella displayed a "lack" of national pride and respect for the cultural history and literary traditions of Ukraine. They accused Andrukhovych of amorality and "antipatriotism." Particularly interesting in this regard are the letters to the editors of Suchasnist'.6 Those criticizing Andrukhovych's novella used designations such as "khaltura"7 and "ornohrafiia"8; the novel was described as an "abuse" [znushchannia] of the native language and Shevchenko's word. A reader from Ukraine was even more sarcastic. She defined Andrukhovych's style as "pseudo-intellectual toilet pornography" [tualetnoporno-psevdo-intelektual'nyi.] 10 On the other hand, the novella attracted the interest of some prominent Ukrainian literary critics who approached it as a highly sophisticated, postcolonial and postmodernist discourse. Not surprisingly, the positive readings presented a totally different picture. Andnukhovych was praised for his sober realism and ability to speak boldly, without false patriotic pathos about his society. In Mykola Riabchuk's view, the novella was an explicitly satirical text that assumed a playful and carnivalesque stance, and was endowed with a lively plot, realistic characters and a clever denouement. 12 The interpretations of M. Pavlyshyn and Slobodanka M. Vladiv-Glover were in the same vein.13 My interest in the novella is not inspired by the above mentioned discussion. The focus of the present analysis is on the use of folkloric images, techniques and narrative patterns, and their "processing" under conditions of contemporary literary experimentation. More specifically, I am interested in the semiotic mechanism(s) that govern the renascence of the national folkloric inventory in the discourse of recent Ukrainian prose. I consider, Iurii Andrukhovych's novella Rekreats as an illustration of these mechanisms.14 My study advances the idea that, today, the centuries-old oral tradition of Ukrainian folklore is questioned and ambivalently re-discovered as part of the modem Ukrainian self. It appears that, at present, folkloric texts are denied the elevated status of being the ultimate embodiments of the national psyche. …