ARTISTIC SPACE OF THE POETRY OF KORYAK VLADIMIR KOYANTO

The article is devoted to the poetry of the Koryak Vladimir Koyanto, the second and probably the last writer in the history of this national literature. The features of his artistic world are considered, the main problem-thematic sections are identified, key motives and images are established, the linguistic aspects of poetry are analyzed. The interpretation of the extensive text corpus showed that the poet was acutely worried about the collapse of Soviet reality, it was difficult for him to get used to the new post-Soviet era. The theme of unfavorable, destructive modernity, the motive of unfulfilled expectations in V. Koyanto’ poems are widespread. In a number of texts the presence of a mythological substrate is recorded, the influence of the traditional culture of the Koryaks on artistic narratives is observed. It is emphasized that the author was focused on the traditions of Russian classical literature and at the same time associated himself with the circumpolar ethnocultural landscape. An appeal to the works of V. Koyanto is of great importance for comparative literature studies, it gives an idea of the ways and problems of the development of “minority” literature as a complex cultural phenomenon.

THEORY OF «MINOR» LITERATURE AND INTERPRETATION OF EPISTOLARY TEXT: CASE OF P. KULISH

The article is devoted to the consideration of P. Kulish's epistolary in the context of «minority» literature. The authors of this theory are J. Deleuze and F. Guattari. Rethinking the key categories of «minor» writing in modern interdisciplinary studies produces a differentiation and refinement of the definitions of «minor»/«small»/«minority» via interpreting various in-between phenomena of literature. Given that in the Ukrainian humanities this theory has not been carefully considered and as a methodological tool has not been updated, the analysis of these works revealed the feasibility of distinguishing concepts derived from the concept of «minor». The main purpose of the study is to reveal the features of Kulish's correspondence through the criteria of minor literature, in particular de(re)territorialization, formation, political semantics. The choice of material is determined by the ambiguity, «encryption» (V. Petrov) of the creative manner, the bilingual nature of the writer's epistolary. The process of self-determination within the Russian epistolary canon affects the nature of language codes. Linguistic transformations in this correspondence, in particular, the mixing of different linguistic elements, have a comedic, parodic character. There is a peripheralization of the dominant n language in terms of social and territorial affiliation. The transmission of Ukrainian pronunciation can be seen not only through the transformation of the Russian epistolary canon, but also as its subversive approach to the creation of a new quality of language in the future.

The Double Force of Vulnerability

This article reviews ethnographic literature of environmental justice (EJ). Both a social movement and scholarship, EJ is a crucial domain for examining the intersections of environment, well-being, and social power, and yet has largely been dominated by quantitative and legal analyses. A minority literature in comparison, ethnography attends to other valences of injustice and modes of inequality. Through this review, we argue that ethnographies of EJ forward our understanding of how environmental vulnerability is lived, as communities experience and confront toxic environments. Following a genealogy of EJ, we explore three prominent ethnographic thematics of EJ: the production of vulnerability through embodied toxicity; the ways that injustice becomes embedded in landscapes; and how processes like research collaborations and legal interventions become places of thinking and doing the work of justice. Finally, we identify emergent trends and challenges, suggesting future research directions for ethnographic consideration.

Re-Imported Literature or Double Domestication: Shizuko’s Daughter by Kyoko Mori

A text can travel between languages and cultures through translation, but this “travel” can be rather complicated when the text not only goes, but goes back to the culture of origin. This can happen when the text is about the culture of the target language. Translating Memoir of Geisha by Arthur Golden (1997) into Japanese can be one example. Due to the expected level of readers’ cultural knowledge, the translator will have to use some different translation strategies compared to when the text is translated into other languages. This “travel” of the text can be even more complicated if the author’s first language or original cultural background is different from the language in which s/he writes the text – for example, an author whose first language is Japanese, but writing his/her text in English, about stories that take place in Japan – and then the text is translated into Japanese by a translator, to be published in Japan. This is the case of Kyoko Mori, a Japanese-American writer who had grown up in Japan until she moved to U.S. as an adult. Her first novel, Shizuko’s Daughter was published in U.S. in 1993. It is autobiographical, and therefore the story takes place in Japan, with all its personages being Japanese. The novel was translated by Makiko Ikeda and published in Japan in 1995. Four of Mori’s novels are published in Japan, but the author never translated her own novels into Japanese. This happened before the cross-border literature boom in Japan and may be considered as its precursor. In the present study, the “travel” of this text will be studied from two aspects – exoticisation and translation. The novel belongs to the minority literature in U.S., and its Japanese aspects seem to be emphasized in its reading (in its cover or in book reviews), whereas in Japan, its publication was called “Reimported Japanese literature”, and the fact it was written in English attracted great attention. It was an exoticisation from both ends. As for the translation, source and target texts will be studied in detail, to identify the cases of change, addition (of extra information), omission, correction of culturally wrong information (if any) and their motives will be considered. Unnatural expressions and translationese will also be studied, considering if they can be avoided when the first language of the author is Japanese.

Književno stvaralaštvo manjina u Hrvatskoj – dio hrvatske književnosti ili ne?

There are numerous national minorities in Croatia supported by the state in their maintenance of minority languages, cultures and traditions. And many of these minorities with songs, dance and customs cherish their own literature, meaning poetry, prose, and drama written by their members in minority languages or in Croatian. These works are mostly known among members of the minorities, but sometimes it is difficult to find the way to readers of the majority of the population. An example of such a minority literature with a long tradition is literary creation of the Czech, who have been living in today’s Croatia for over two hundred years. Nowadays regularly or occasionally there are about thirty authors who write mostly in Czech, but to come to the readership, some of them have been translating their work into the Croatian language lately or leaving their mother tongue and starting to create in Croatian. Are Croatia’s minority works known and to what extent? What are the possibilities of writers using minority languages to publish their works? Why are minority literary works important, what can they offer to a broader readership and in what way can they enrich Croatian literature? How could they reach the majority population and could they wake up the interest beyond Croatian borders? And what difficulties do minority writers encounter? In the presentation, we will use the example of Czech minority literary works in Croatia to answer these and other issues related to minority literature emerging in Croatia, but remaining unknown to the Croatian public.