Struggle for national identity preservation in Central and Eastern EuropeA case study of Ion Drutse´s prose, an echo from the Soviet metropolis

Resumen

Struggle for National Identity Preservation in Central and Eastern Europe. A Case Study of Ion Drutse’s Prose, an Echo from the Soviet Metropolis. Author: Tatiana Pînzari Despite the vast research carried out by postcolonial theorists on the colonial past of the so-called Third World countries little is known about the colonial legacy of the post-Soviet countries. The overall image that emerges from the literature review in this dissertation is that most of Moscow’s former satellites had a hard time acknowledging their subaltern position. Actually, many of them, as the case study of Moldova reveals, fail to consider Soviet hegemony as a form of colonial domination. This dissertation responds to Moore’s appeal to look at the post-Soviet reality from a postcolonial perspective and analyses three novels by the Moldovan writer, Ion Drutse who apparently belongs to the socialist realism movement. The textual analysis of the duology The Burden of Our Goodness as well as of the novels The Spire and Leaves of Yearning has been carried out from a postcolonial perspective in the belief that is shall help us understand the identity crisis in the post-Soviet Moldova. Themes that commonly describe the postcolonial experience have been identified in these works. On the one hand these have been analysed in relation to Drutse’s personal interaction with both the Soviet establishment and the (Romanian and Russian) literary canons. On the other hand, they have been related to the changes that occurred in the Sovietised Moldovan society in the second half of the 20th century. Moreover, the ways the Moldovan artist interacted with the dominant discourse is also considered when analysing the (biblical and literary) motifs and symbols that he used to build his national(ist) myths. And, last but not least, characters are analysed to identify the way the native subaltern reacted to the intrusion of the cultural “other”. The postcolonial approach to the analysis has revealed that Drutse often used literature to subvert the dominant Soviet discourse. He did so, for example, by approaching the themes of exile, the journey or domination, which he managed to represent from a subaltern perspective and in a subaltern a voice. This alternative (hi)story exposed the crimes of the Stalin era. Also, the way Drutse used symbols to bring the nation’s legendary past to life leads to the conclusion that he is no servant of the (colonial) metropolis. He is a rebel who simultaneously appropriated and abrogated the culture (language and literature) of the centre to make the nationalist discourse destabilise the dominant one. In addition, the character analysis has identified (some of) the elements behind the (still topical) identity issue in the Moldovan society. It found that the subaltern’s desire to be in his master’s shoes made him both embrace the Soviet utopia summed up in the concept of homo Sovieticus and to resist it. So, Drutse’s novels add a nuance to our understanding of the way identities were forged in the peripheries of the Soviet empire. The postcolonial perspective highlights the existence of a battle amongst the different forms of knowledge constructions and legitimation that operate in the contact zones. Thus, the dissertation is part of a growing body of research on non-Western perspectives on the “third-space” experience(s) as developed by Bhabha or Pratt. Also, it contributes to further research on the post-Soviet dependency system as a form of colonialism.