postcolonial. Each of them turns out to be a
construct, each of them deforms the real Image,
which should be considered to correspond to the
real state of affairs to the greatest extent, but does
so in its own way, not in the same way as the
other. In the mid-1980s, Said had a turning point:
the position of cultural nationalism of the Third
World gave way in his conception to a globalist
position, which, in particular, implies the
rejection of nationalism, national borders,
nations as such. There are a number of important
consequences from this turning point, which can
hardly be considered a coincidence or the result
of a situational coincidence. The first and most
important of them points to the emergence of a
new self-identification of the subject and a
renewed identity, on the basis of which a new
concept of national literature is formed,
maximally adapted to the globalized world and
global literary environment. The essence of this
concept is a new combination of two basic
elements of literary creativity: aesthetic and
ideological – in rethinking the relationship
between them, which is interpreted as optimal
and desirable, and, finally, a new attitude to the
literary canon of the West as such and the canon
which is exported on behalf of the West to
literary systems and environments of the “Third
World”.
For the perception of Ukrainian literature in
England, the views and approaches in question
are of great importance, although they, of course,
cannot be transferred to the background of
Ukrainian-English literary contacts and relations
unconditionally and directly. Preliminary idea of
one or another example of Ukrainian red writing,
one or another figure, one or another work is
formed in the English and English-speaking
cultural environment mainly on the basis of the
“ideological and political” reading and
understanding, which is denied, at least at the
level of theory and declarations (Said, 1994,
p. 79). This preliminary idea has a significant
impact on the selection of material for inclusion
in the reception process, as well as on the further
interpretation of this material, which is carried
out according to a predetermined, based on the
principle of “own” – “foreign”, “higher” –
“lower” model.
If we accept the logic of the postcolonial
worldview and the postcolonial method as an
interpretive strategy, as Hundorova (2013), for
example, does in her famous book Transit
Culture, and the relations between former
metropolises and former colonies, we must admit
that literary contacts and the relationship
between such literatures as English and
Ukrainian is almost doomed to exist in an
asymmetric format with a clear presence of an
element of inequality, which is reflected in the
spontaneous recognition and a priori tacit
agreement of all stakeholders to distinguish and
divide partner literatures on those that belong to
the literature of the “center” and those that are
among the literature of the “periphery”. Thus, the
relationship between the two national literatures
appears not just in another, but in a qualitatively
new light: no longer as a relationship not between
individual, self-sufficient phenomena, because of
the national identity of each isolated from others,
which are also closed in and due to bar defined
as a factor of national origin, and as between the
components of one common – world or, in
modern language, global literature, appropriately
structured and hierarchically organized.
Extrapolating the above provisions, in particular
those concerning the concept of intercultural
dialogue, its nature, specificity and features, the
historical situation in the field of Ukrainian-
English cultural and literary contacts, as well as
the links of Ukrainian literature and culture with
the literature and cultures of the English-
speaking cultural area, it should be noted that a
full dialogue between English and / or other
English-language literature and literature in the
Ukrainian state at the moment remains, in our
opinion, a matter of the future. Having
successfully passed the initial stage, the
Ukrainian-English cultural dialogue settled on
the next – middle stage, gradually accumulating
the potential to move to the final stage, but not
yet having enough and quality of this potential to
make such a transition.
The conclusion according to which the
relationship between Ukrainian and English
literature in general and the perception of
Ukrainian literature in England and the English-
speaking cultural area in particular should be
considered in terms of primarily dialogic
relations between partners, currently seems
controversial. The fact of cultural and literary
exchange in its certain forms and volumes is
indisputable, but whether this exchange can be
considered a real, full-fledged dialogue is, in our
opinion, a question that needs further analysis.
The statement that the dialogue has already been
established seems to outline a certain
perspective, but it is not entirely relevant and
sufficient to characterize and describe the current
state of affairs. At the same time, there are hardly
any serious grounds to deny that the dialogic
characteristic is an integral part of both Ukrainian
and English literature and culture, and due to this
circumstance, the possibility of forming dialogic