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DOI: https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2023.61.01.1
How to Cite:
Drozdovskyi, D. (2023). Discourse of resistance in contemporary Ukrainian fiction: satire and anti-colonial motives in Maria
Miniailo’s Stolen Spring. Amazonia Investiga, 12(61), 10-16. https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2023.61.01.1
Discourse of resistance in contemporary Ukrainian fiction: satire and
anti-colonial motives in Maria Miniailo’s Stolen Spring
Дискурс опору в сучасній українській прозі: сатира й антиколоніальні мотиви в
повісті «Вкрадена весна» М. Міняйло
Received: January 3, 2023 Accepted: January 30, 2023
Written by:
Dmytro Drozdovskyi1
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2838-6086
Abstract
The situation of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine
after February 24, 2022 resulted in the
emergence of literary works that reflect the forms
of literary interpretation of war, its catastrophic
consequences and tragic losses. ‘Stolen Spring’
(2022) by Ukrainian writer Maria Miniailo is one
of the first novellas in Ukraine that is based on
the real situations that reveal the confrontation
between Ukrainian people and Russian invaders
in 2022 as the result of the full-scale invasion.
‘Stolen Spring’ is an example of a narrative that
reveals Berlant’s ideas about the theory of ‘cruel
optimism’. It was discussed that the reality of the
war became the factor of resistance generating
new senses that became a factor in establishing
an innovative historical reality in Ukraine. At the
same time, it was emphasized that Miniailo’s
novella is a form of intensification of Ukrainian
resistance to the ideology of new Russian
‘fascism’ (Rasshism) represented in the
behaviour of the “katsap” community and
portrayed in the concept of the “Russian soul”.
The writer resorts to the construction of the world
that reinforces the satirical forms through
transparent depictions of reality in all its forms in
war and terror.
Keywords: contemporary Ukrainian literature,
cruel optimism, Maria Miniailo, satire, war.
1
Academic Fellow at the Department of Foreign and Slavic Literatures, Shevchenko Institute of Literature, National Academy of
Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine.
Drozdovskyi, D. / Volume 12 - Issue 61: 10-16 / January, 2023
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Introduction
The recently published book 24.02 (2022) by
Maria Miniailo (Марія Міняйло) consists of two
novellas, ‘Stolen Spring’ (the main work in the
book) and ‘The Flower Garden of Mrs. Savenko’
and four short stories on war topics (‘The story
about grandfather Dmytro, who scared five
saboteurs’, ‘A story about Olexandra, who met
love in the ruins of her former life’, ‘A story
about Ihor, who met face to face with a real spy’,
‘A story about Mrs. Myroslava, who prepared a
special moonshine’). In the beginning of 2022,
Miniailo’s book The Children of Grad was
published in London by Glagoslav Publications
(https://waterloopress.co.uk/books/the-children-
of-grad-2022). This time the writer has created a
narrative that in a special way portrays the
situation in Ukraine after the full-scale invasion
in 2022.
The war in Ukraine became a factor in the world
crisis of ethics, as it caused mass emigration, the
reign of fear, the death of ordinary people, etc.
Contemporary Ukrainian fiction (Drozdovskyi
2021) demonstrates the transformation of its
literary landscape due to wartime. New motives
and new concepts have been reinforced after the
full-scale invasion. Contemporary novels,
novellas and short stories portray the situation of
the war and its influence on the social life of
Ukrainian people. The Russian-Ukrainian war
has generated texts in which the authors reflect
on the tragedy that Ukraine experienced in 2022
and reveals the antihuman aggressive nature of
Russian invaders who destroy people’s homes
and ruin human lives.
Miniailo’s novella is an example of the narrative
of resistance that was created in Ukrainian fiction
(Miniailo, 2022) and poetry (Korotko, 2022) in
2022. The literary text is an example of literature
that demonstrates the terror of war and re-thinks
the relations between Russians and Ukrainians in
one little village. Though partly satirical, her
novella realistically depicts the catastrophes that
happened in Ukrainian cities that were occupied
in February-March, 2022. Miniailo reinforces the
motifs of inter-cultural clash between
communities, collaborationism and inner human
transformations, and the unreasonable cruelty
that is a remarkable feature of Russian identity.
The writer demonstrates the abyss that exists
between two communities in the Ukrainian
village: Ukrainians, and Russians whom the
author calls “the katsaps”.
‘Stolen Spring’ is a cultural text with
anthropological implications that demonstrate
the basic and fundamental differences between
communities and explain the nature of the
destructive desire of the Russians for war and
confrontations. In the novella, Miniailo re-thinks
and revises the issues that deal with identity
phenomenon. The author concludes that there are
some stable and unchangeable features of
identities that result in specific forms of social
behaviour.
Despite some grotesque episodes and situations,
the novella portrays real experiences of war and
the situations that happened in the occupied
Ukrainian villages and towns in 2022. The author
may have used real facts distributed in the media
about the cruelties of Russian invaders.
However, this real cruelty has become an
inspiration for the author to create a literary work
that demonstrates the power of Ukrainian people
and demonstrates how they were able to liberate
their villages and towns. ‘Stolen Spring’
demonstrates Berlant’s concept of “cruel
optimism” and is an example of a text that was
created in one of the most cruel times Ukraine
has ever experienced. Tragedies of real life
intensify literary experiment and demonstrate a
system of new motives and socio-cultural issues
that become important for literary representation
in contemporary Ukrainian fiction.
In this paper, I will analyse the crash of two
communities and cultural identities, Ukrainians
and “katsaps”, represented in ‘Stolen Spring’,
and the forms of portraying the issues of
occupations regarding the discourse of the
Russian-Ukrainian war intensified after February
24, 2022.
Theoretical Framework or Literature Review
In the study ‘Unclaimed Experience: Trauma,
Narrative and History’ (1996), Kathy Caruth
speaks about trauma as an event that carries not
only destructive potential, but one which also
harbours the possibilities of new meanings and
life-affirming narratives. In the article, I will
consider the new form of relationship between
social reality and literature (fiction), literary
practices, and social fears and disasters. The war
context of “cruel reality” has become a form of
immense productivity in order to establish the
narrative that is opposite to the discourse of
Russian military aggression, antihumanism,
fascism, etc.
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The specificity of the situation in Ukraine after
the full-scale invasion in February 2022
determines the choice of methodology that
reflects the correlation of literature (fiction) with
the relevant socio-cultural and political context. I
have reinforced theoretical works that
demonstrate the connection between the forms of
restrictions due to terror, war, etc. and the
reflection on such restrictions in literary texts. In
the work of L. Berlant, the cruelty of reality
contains the potential impulse for
transformations that draw inspiration from the
cruelty of the surrounding reality. Kathleen
Stewart's work Ordinary Affects (2007)
demonstrates the correlations between the
general social situation and the structure of
sensibility, the forms of feelings that find
realization in literature and the arts. Stewart in
her research ‘begins with the disparate,
fragmented, and seemingly inconsequential
experiences of everyday life to bring attention to
the ordinary as an integral site of cultural politics.
Ordinary affect, she insists, is registered in its
particularities, yet it connects people and creates
common experiences that shape public feeling’
(Ordinary Affects). Moreover, Stewart has
proved that social factors in many ways structure
the narrative, reflecting certain images in it,
determining literary practices, etc. The external
reality and the general system of feelings that
prevails in society determines the narratives in
fiction, outlining a certain topic, image system,
within it.
Fiction in post-postmodern conditions in Ukraine
is postulated not as an autonomous phenomenon,
but as one that is under the significant influence
of social pressure, wartime consequences; and,
therefore, the context determines artistic
practices.
Methodology
The research vector corresponds to contemporary
cultural approaches, methodological guidelines
that determine the understanding of
contemporary literature (fiction), in particular in
the aspect of representing the concept of Cruel
Optimism (Berlant, 2011), Ordinary Affects
(Stewart, 2007), The Promise of Happiness
(Ahmed, 2010), etc. This methodology is
innovative and has not yet been applied to
Ukrainian material, in particular in the aspect of
studying fiction.
Berlant’s methodology has been exploited in the
research as in the most successful way it gives
grounds to explain the connections between the
‘cruel’ reality of war in Ukraine and Miniailo’s
novella written in the war period as the result of
this clash with the cruelness of the war. The
originality and innovativeness of the project is
connected with the necessity to comprehend
changes in approaches, principles and techniques
that take place in Ukrainian poetry during war
time.
William Watkins in his On Mourning: Theories
of Loss in Modern Literature (2004) defines the
crises of the contemporary world, in which there
is a discrepancy between political, moral and
ethical ideals and the existing state of affairs in
society, which makes it impossible to build a
society of ethics. The unattainability of these
ideals forms a society of melancholy, which is
reflected in culture and art, which appears as a
narrative of grief, mourning, and pain. Literature
these days reinforces the motif of death, because
society cannot create a space of happiness and
ethics for all individuals. If society cannot take
responsibility for the ethical dimension, then arts
and literature in particular, as Watkins stresses,
take responsibility for death, which is the result
of the gap that arises from the unattainability of
the ideal. Literary practices and fiction forms
reinforce the motives of melancholy and despair,
which generally speak of the pessimistic images
represented in their paradigm.
In their theoretical works, Berlant, Stewart, and
Watkins define the methodology of this research,
which explores the conceptual sphere of
contemporary Ukrainian fiction. Such a sphere of
new concepts is formed under the influence of
generally threatening messages through the
intensification of the discourse of melancholy,
death, etc. The discourse of death is determined
by the topic of war in Ukraine, which is relayed
by media and which affects the worldview of
Ukrainian writers like Miniailo. At the same
time, the war increases the need for self-
expression, intensifying practices that appear as
a form of response to the brutality of reality, or
melancholy, crying and despair arising from the
global violation of ethical principles. The
represented methodology is determined by the
real socio-cultural situation in Ukraine and
reflects the key forms of interaction of literary
and socio-cultural reality in the conditions of
war.
Results and Discussion
T. Snyder (2022) explains the Russian-Ukrainian
war as an example of the ‘last postcolonial war’.
The novella ‘Stolen Spring’ (‘Вкрадена весна’)
draws readers’ attention primarily due to the
ability of the author to portray contemporary
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characters in war torn Ukraine. The novella is
genetically and typologically close to classic
Ukrainian author Ivan Nechui-Levytskyi’s
famous novella Kaidash’s Family (“Кайдашева
сім’я”, 1878). ‘Stolen Spring’ reinforces the
questions raised in Nechui-Levytskyi's text, but
in the new wartime context.
Miniailo wrote a story in which we have the
concept of ‘laughter through tears’ (Ivan Franko
used these words to define the essence of
Kaidash’s Family). It is an example of the
imagological novella with an Us and Them
emphasis for Ukrainian and Russian/ ‘katsap’
characters respectively: the Ukrainians (the
Doroshko family, Andrii Shtanko) are depicted
as familiar to the reader, while the Russians are
ascribed the derogatory colloquial lexeme
“katsaps” (“billy goats”) to emphasize their
foreignness (Vera Vasylivna, Styopa, Tan’ka).
Miniailo admitted in her January post on
Facebook (with information about the
publication of the book) that the basis for her
novella ‘Stolen Spring’ was an uncompleted
play, How The Katsaps In Our Village Had A
Wedding Party, on which the writer had
previously worked. Moreover, the dramatic
element in the story is clear and strong enough to
compare this novella with The Kaidash’s Family.
The novella was written on the basis of a
grotesque and satirical depiction of the souls of
the ‘katsaps’ and tragic events related to the
occupation of Ukrainian villages, towns and
cities in 2022.
Satire in Miniailo’s novella becomes a powerful
instrument instead of irony. Irony has become
useless in the paradigm of war and for a culture
staring death in the face. New (post-postmodern)
Sincerity in Ukrainian novellas demonstrates the
break with postmodernism in the aspect of irony
and rejection of true emotions. Miniailo’s novella
underlines satire and the return to the human as
core elements of the post-postmodern wartime
discourse. ‘The ideas of sincerity and
authenticity are not unchanging but differ from
culture to culture’ (O’Gorman & Eaglestone,
2019: 38). Martin Paul Eve provides a few
examples: ‘Firstly, assuming that authenticity
really exists, it is possible to behave
authentically, but insincerely. If <…> you make
a promise on which you subsequently renege,
you were insincere but authentic.’ (O’Gorman &
Eaglestone, 2019, 38).
To explain the notion of New Sincerity, Martin
Paul Eve states that ‘one of the core components
that needs to be analyzed is the supposition that
the irony of postmodern literature ‘is parasitic on
sincerity’ <…>. Indeed, those contemporary
authors seeking new ways of engaging with
sincerity in their fiction are not rejecting all
aspects of postmodern literature; the complexity,
fragmentation and even the historical subject
often remains <…>. Instead, the core facet that
these authors of the (New) Sincerity reject to
their aesthetic is postmodern irony while in
philosophy they retain a postmodern incredulity
at the idea of an authentic self’ (Eve, 2019: 39).
Irony does not play the key role in the post-
postmodern narrative of the contemporary
Ukrainian novel. The narrative describes the
situation in which irony is connected with
sincerity, moreover, irony is connected with
authenticity and, finally, irony is connected with
the discourse of tragedy and pain the Ukraine
wartime.
In the novella, the ‘katsaps’ live in the world of
alcohol abasement and do not want to make any
effort to make their own lives better. Unlike
Ukrainian families, which are able to organize
themselves in the most difficult moment in order
to survive, the ‘katsaps’ can win only when they
have a physical advantage. They are not capable
of collectivism, of mutual assistance. The
‘katsaps’’ world in the novella is depicted as
internally disjointed and aggressive, where the
animal instinct reigns. The image of the ‘katsap’
woman Vira Vasylivna and her son Styopa
reflects ideas about the laziness and
aggressiveness of the “Russian soul”; the
‘katsaps’ in the story are dirty and cruel to each
other, e.g.: the mother abuses her son in the same
way that her husband abused her until his death.
In the novella, Miniailo recreated the
peculiarities of the interaction of two families in
the Ukrainian countryside, one of which is
typical Ukrainian, and the other typical ‘katsap’.
The writer manages to construct characters
belonging to different cultural and historical
paradigms. In general, the story is satirical; it
resembles ‘The Kaidash’s Family’ world with a
huge number of dialogues between the
characters. In addition, the novella could be
easily transferred to a theatre stage: the dialogues
between the characters are full of laughter and
represent a special wit, they reflect the flow of
real life.
Moreover, it is worth saying about the third-
person narrative at the very beginning of the
story that the writer resorts to a narrative
technique which occurs in Ukrainian classical
literature. This is the view of the omnipotent
narrator who talks about the world in an epic,
detached way; and such a story contrasts with
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what will be discussed further in the dialogues.
In the finale episode, the reader finds out who
recorded for posterity what happened in the
village during the occupation, who told of the
victories of the Ukrainians over the ‘katsapy’,
who recorded all the crimes of the occupying
marauders.
‘And it so happened that many years ago (no one
can say exactly how many years ago) several
dozen katsap families moved (or were relocated)
to our village. During this time, they multiplied
so much that they now made up a significant
percentage of our rural community. Most of them
drank incessantly and lived in poverty on the
edge of the village. As my grandmother used to
say: "They are born naked and barefoot, they
grow up naked and barefoot, they die naked and
barefoot." They started drinking when they were
young, but that's why they didn't live to old age.
They gave life to the same miserable creatures
who repeated the fate of their parents’ (Miniailo,
2022, p. 7).
In ‘Stolen Spring’, the author uses words that are
rarely used by writers today. These are forgotten,
outdated lexemes. The author sometimes
explains them in her notes for readers. These
words help to create the mode that helps to de-
automatize readers’ perceptions. Old Ukrainian
lexemes only confirm the specific authenticity of
the Ukrainian world and intensify the
grotesqueness of the reality, which in the reader's
perception is still very strongly connected with
the events of February 24, 2022.
Moreover, the novella is characterized by the
discourse of Ukrainian authenticity. From the
dialogues, the readers can clearly imagine
contemporary characters. In the traditions of
Ukrainian classic literature, the writer often
resorts to the construction of a stock rustic world.
But in ‘Stolen Spring’ the rustic space seems to
be written in a modern form. The Ukrainian
space of the modern village is depicted without
artificial pastoralism, idealization or excessive
images of village degradation. Psychological
authenticity in the relationship between the
characters is what attracts Miniailo’s story.
Miniailo portrays typical characters of
contemporary Ukraine. Tan’ka is perhaps the
most expressive representative of the ‘katsap’
world: ugly, dirty, cruel, constantly drunk.
Styopa's mother seems to have faith in God, but
this faith appears to be flat, it is faith from
spiritual poverty. Reverend (Father) Pavlo is
depicted through the internal dynamics of
confusion, and the struggle with his own efforts
to avoid participation in the wedding of Tan’ka
and Styopa. The wedding is the apotheosis of the
representation of the “Russian spirit”, which ends
with a senseless drunken fight.
Miniailo’s satire on the Russian spirit is
successful in the novella. The readers see in the
story that all tortures the Ukrainians have gone
through are not a figment of the author’s
imagination. Looting, rape, etc., everything is
part of a real horror that continues to this day in
Ukraine. Tan’ka happily has sex with the
‘katsap’ soldiers. But in the novel, both the
geography teacher and the girl are raped. Styopa
becomes a typical collaborator: he is a person
without moral principles, although he still paid
one of his debts. He rejoices in his widowhood
and is ready to imprison the priest who sanctified
his marriage.
Reverend Pavlo’s role during the occupation of
the village is important. At the same time, the
victory over the ‘katsaps’ is attributed to the
woman Marusia, who is considered a village
witch. The “potions” she prepares help to deal
with violent rapists who abuse Ukrainians.
The world of the ‘katsaps’ in ‘Stolen Spring’ is
cruel, aggressive, mean and miserable. The
author satirically ridicules the inability of the
‘katsaps’ to build a comfortable space. Instead,
they show a bilious envy of the Ukrainians, who
were able to create something amazing in their
gardens. ‘Styopa's house, where he lived with his
mother, Vira Vasylivna, was on the edge of the
village. There used to be barracks here, but over
time, thanks to the efforts of the head of the
village council, they disappeared, and in their
place, a dozen one-story brick houses were built,
to which the heirs of the katsap barracks moved.
The locals jokingly called this place ‘parebrik’,
because the katsap culture and attitudes prevailed
here’ (Miniailo, 2022, p. 19).
Styopa, by the way, also does not understand
why his mother is unable to even plant carrots in
her garden. However, he himself is childish, and
cannot work out how to deal with the situation of
marriage with Tan’ka. He chooses his wife only
at the will of his mother, who sees Tan’ka as a
good wife (from the financial point of view). The
world of the ‘katsap’ soul is creepy, empty,
haunted, but still capable of bringing death to
Ukrainian lands. The marriage of Styopa and
Tan’ka is unsustainable, so the death of Tan’ka
seems natural in the story. For Styopa, the death
of his wife is by no means a tragedy. He is down-
to-earth and humble, living a primitive life; after
Tan’ka's death he does not fall into grief, but
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continues to seek to satisfy his physiological
needs.
Ukrainian characters in the story have moral
values. Their lives are not simple, there are
misunderstandings, insults, internal struggles,
but the characters live in a world built according
to moral standards. However, the world of the
‘katsaps’ is fundamentally different. Almost
entirely animal instincts reign there, some
inexplicable cruelty that manifests itself in the
relationship between husband and wife, mother
and son. The characters of the story do not
imagine any other life. Styopa thanks Bohdan for
the fact that once he protected him from the boys
who had fun beating a ‘katsap’. Vira Vasylivna
does not invite a priest of a Moscow church from
a neighboring village to the wedding, because
she believes that if Reverend Pavlo consecrates
the marriage, somehow the family will already be
tolerated and fall in love: ‘“I believe that you are
anointed by God...”, said Vira Vasylivna
unexpectedly. - You have sanctity. Let the son's
marriage be a hundred times unhappy, but let him
be blessed by God. Then there will be no grief in
marriage. There will be no happiness, but the son
will not fall into the noose, the wife will not be
beaten either. Their life will be normal”’
(Miniailo, 2022, p. 44). Vira Vasylivna's
behaviour is irrational, mostly predatory (both
towards her own and towards others) in the
novella.
The novella ‘Stolen Spring’ demonstrates the
chasm of worldviews, it satirically reveals the
opinion that the Russian world is not viable.
Vitality, which creates new lives, is not presented
in the Russian world, the Russians have an
animal desire to survive, there is a desire to "coop
up", as the author writes, theirs is a desire to kill,
to get pleasure from revenge and self-
aggrandizement by diminishing one's neighbour.
There are no values in the Russian world
represented in the novella. That is why the
marriage between Tan’ka and Styopa ends in an
“abyss”: she dies and Styopa becomes a
collaborator. Styopa does not physically desire
his wife, he does not have feelings for her, and
even his attempts to “drink a cup of tea”, (to have
sex) with Tan’ka are simulated. ‘Tanya dragged
Styopa up to the second floor to their bedroom.
No matter how he tried to delay this moment,
explaining that it is not comfortable in front of
people, Tanya did not listen to that. Vodka and
the recent fight ignited such a thirst in her that she
couldn't stand it. She dragged Styopa into the
bedroom and, grabbing the skirt of the dress,
growled: “Take me as a wife.” Styopa did not
really understand how exactly one should take a
wife and whether it is worth it at all?’ (Miniailo,
2022, p. 65-66).
Conclusions
Miniailo’s ‘Stolen Spring’ is a novella that
reinforces the issues of war confrontation
intensified after the full-scale invasion by Russia
in February, 2022. The text demonstrates the
author’s attention to the identity representations
that give a clue to understanding the nature of
Russian aggression in Ukraine. ‘Stolen Spring; is
an example of the text that is a part of the
narrative of resistance crated in Ukraine after
2022: the author has prepared a narrative that
provokes emotional response to the cruelty of
Russians perpetrated against the occupied
Ukrainian territories. Miniailo unites in her story
true facts and imagined situations providing a
grotesque narrative in which satire plays a key
role.
The novella demonstrates the importance of
Berlant’s theory that cruel reality could be a
source for transformations in the sphere of arts
and literature. Miniailo has used the discourse of
war as a material for rethinking Russian identity
and representing its key anthropological features.
The writer uses irony to intensify the grotesque
forms of representation of Russians as cruel,
ugly, and without any desire to build a
comfortable world. Miniailo stresses that
Russians had a long history of coexistence with
Ukrainians and in different times this coexistence
was peaceful but with a lot of hidden problems
that were not articulated in a public sphere. The
author demonstrates inner Russian desire to
destroy the order of the Ukrainian world, and to
reshape their community in accordance with the
norms of Russian the world. Miniailo explains in
her novella the concept of the “Russian spirit” as
a phenomenon that contains aggression and
destructive intentions. Russian characters in the
novella reveal the motif of unconscious
behaviour, they are reckless and irrational, they
do not have a desire to build a socially
comfortable sphere and in their lives the
characters share purely pragmatic views. The
community of the ‘katsaps’ does not have values
based on moral principles and ethics. They fight
with each other and reveal the forms of cruel
behaviour between mother and son, husband and
wife.
‘Stolen Spring; is an example of imagological
texts in which the plot and narrative in general
play with stereotypes and ruined expectations
connected with identity representations and
social interactions of the characters. The text
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proves Stewart’s theory about the influences of
social background on the cultural situation that is
determined by the tendentious society, and
reveals the key socio-political issues that are
important for people in a particular moment of
time. Miniailo has created a story that is a new
attempt to portray a typical Ukrainian family as
in the times of Nechui-Levytskyi’s outstanding
Ukrainian novella ‘Kaidash’s Family. Miniailo
also builds her story on many dialogues that
intensify the plot dynamics and reinforce the
issue of social relations between two different
cultural groups. The level of dramatization in the
novella is high and the conversations between
characters give a possibility to understand their
psychology and deep subconscious motivations.
Ukrainians in the story are connected with the
concept of a peaceful world order and the
Russians (the ‘katsaps’) are portrayed as a
community that has no values and that is oriented
to bring destruction to the world and get satiation
from social cruelty, war and violence as realized
in murders, rapes, blackmailing, etc. that happen
in the village in the occupation period.
The novella stresses the idea of the fundamental
cultural and mental abyss between Russian and
Ukrainian communities, and the author does not
see any possibility of how to build
communication and peaceful co-existence
between them. The mental differences are so
marked between the two nationalities. The only
desire of ‘katsaps’ is to invade, to occupy and to
destroy the world in which they live. With the
help of grotesquery and satire, Miniailo portrays
the tragedy of war in Ukraine and puts emphasis
on the human catastrophe that happens in the
result of such wars. The novella exploits real
situations from the recent war torn history of
Ukraine in 2022 and combines them with the
author’s imagination in order to create a cultural
literary text that is part of the narrative of
resistance.
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