Literature and Memory: Versions of Interplay

Abstract

XX century totally changed people’s imagination about life, peace and about all humanistic values. Two world wars destroyed almost all bases of civilizations and became an experience of horrible death and pain. That’s why that period had been understood not only as a history, but also as a memory of the end of old world. Central category of such kind of memory became trauma. In western humanistic and social researches we can find a lot of examples when traumatic memory created a new discourse of science and culture. Literature was one of the most effective strategies in commemorative practices after wars, famines, Holocaust etc. Literary texts opened a wide field for aesthetical rethinking of trauma. Especially it was important for those cultures, which had a great experience of repressive totalitarian politic. In Ukrainian literature memory strategy is fundamental for today, especially, when we are talking about reconstruction of the lost history, which was rewrite by the ideology of USSR.