The Ukrainian literature of Catastrophe: Revolution, War, and the Chornobyl disaster

The course offers an overview of the Ukrainian literature of catastrophe as a way of representing the dramatic events of the twentieth century. The aim of the course is to examine how trauma influences the literary imagination and to consider the role of tragic consciousness and aesthetic sublimation in presenting catastrophic events. The students read and discuss texts of different Ukrainian authors from Vasyl Stefanyk (1871-1936) to Serhiy Zhadan (born in 1974).