Svitlana (Lana) Krys
MacEwan University, English, Faculty Member
- MacEwan University, Arts and Science, Faculty Memberadd
- Dr. Svitlana (Lana) Krys (PhD, Alberta 2011) is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at MacEwan ... moreDr. Svitlana (Lana) Krys (PhD, Alberta 2011) is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at MacEwan University. Her research focuses on the development of the Gothic genre in Ukrainian literature, and she is currently working on her book manuscript, tentatively titled “At the Origins of the Ukrainian Gothic.” In addition, Dr. Krys serves as the Editor-in-Chief of East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies, a scholarly, peer-reviewed, online periodical, published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (University of Alberta). From 2015-21, she held the title of the Kule Chair in Ukrainian Studies at MacEwan University. Her scholarship has been recognized by the American Association for Ukrainian Studies.edit
The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine and its reforms are the topics of Andrii Liubka’s novel Karbid (Carbide, 2015). Employing Voltairean laughter and neo-Gothic aesthetics, Liubka presents the idea of European integration (one of the... more
The Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine and its reforms are the topics of Andrii Liubka’s novel Karbid (Carbide, 2015). Employing Voltairean laughter and neo-Gothic aesthetics, Liubka presents the idea of European integration (one of the expected outcomes of the reforms) implemented practically by the corrupt elites of the imagined Transcarpathian town of Vedmediv as a money-laundering enterprise – an underground tunnel for smuggling drugs and people’s organs from Ukraine to Europe. The author proposes that the elites – most of whom are criminals – personify Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection in the novel and represent social spheres that need reform. Contrary to the Euromaidan goals, these comprador elites desire even stronger borders between Ukraine and the European Union, as these facilitate their shadow economy, and they subject the local population to economic and social decline, turning them into disposable human waste. By applying the concept of abjection in its psychoanalytic and social forms to Liubka’s tragicomic novel, the author argues that his text points to Ukraine’s struggle to define itself as “West” and shed its totalitarian legacy of the Soviet “East,” and brings attention to the conflict between the post-Euromaidan national strivings of Ukraine’s citizens and the rampant corruption that negates their efforts.
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This article discusses the manner in which the vampire fiction of contemporary Ukrainian author Halyna Pahutiak enters into a dialogue with the global vampire discourse whose core or ‘cultural capital’ finds its origins largely in Bram... more
This article discusses the manner in which the vampire fiction of contemporary Ukrainian author Halyna Pahutiak enters into a dialogue with the global vampire discourse whose core or ‘cultural capital’ finds its origins largely in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (1897). Through discussion of thematic, stylistic, and structural similarities and differences between Pahutiak and Stoker’s portrayals of the vampire myth, my paper sheds light on the conscious mythmaking strategies that Pahutiak employs to return the vampire symbolically from the West to Eastern Europe where it originated, and reassess the core characteristics of the Dracula myth.
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Oleksa Storozhenko’s novel Marko prokliatyi (Marko the Accursed, 1870–79), often viewed as an epitome of the Gothic sensibility in Ukrainian Romanticism, is unique in that it simultaneously endorses and undermines the horrific by turning... more
Oleksa Storozhenko’s novel Marko prokliatyi (Marko the Accursed, 1870–79), often viewed as an epitome of the Gothic sensibility in Ukrainian Romanticism, is unique in that it simultaneously endorses and undermines the horrific by turning the repulsive into the attractive. This article examines the novel’s creative engagement with the Gothic discourse from a postcolonial perspective following Edward Said’s theory of contrapuntal analysis. Reading the novel through the prism of Said’s method helps to unearth a political message in Storozhenko’s work. Produced in the aftermath of increased Russification pressures in the 1860s and 1870s, Marko the Accursed invokes the Cossack era, using it as a foundation for the development of the national idea in nineteenth-century Ukraine. As a result, the transformation of a Gothic sinner, Marko the Accursed, into a glorious Cossack knight has special significance. I argue that it is the twist that Storozhenko puts on the Gothic aesthetics that enables his novel to glorify Ukrainian national heroes when he could not do so directly. That is, I challenge the presumed imperial conservatism that previous scholars saw in him.
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Oleksa Storozhenko—nineteenth-century Ukrainian short story writer, novelist, playwright, translator, and avid collector of folklore—has been somewhat overlooked in Ukrainian literary criticism. His name might have been pushed to the... more
Oleksa Storozhenko—nineteenth-century Ukrainian short story writer, novelist, playwright, translator, and avid collector of folklore—has been somewhat overlooked in Ukrainian literary criticism. His name might have been pushed to the margins of the literary canon on account of his relatively small creative output, or because of his conservative political views—he was detached from Ukrainian national aspirations of the 1860s. Nonetheless, having lived through several artistic epochs and political changes in the Russian Empire, Storozhenko is an important figure in the development of Ukrainian literature.
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This article examines three novels by Ukrainian realist Ivan Franko (1856–1916): Dlia domashn'oho ohnyshcha (For the Home Hearth, 1892), Osnovy suspil'nosti (Pillars of Society, 1894), and Perekhresni stezhky (Fateful Crossroads, 1900).... more
This article examines three novels by Ukrainian realist Ivan Franko (1856–1916): Dlia domashn'oho ohnyshcha (For the Home Hearth, 1892), Osnovy suspil'nosti (Pillars of Society, 1894), and Perekhresni stezhky (Fateful Crossroads, 1900). Previous scholars saw elements of crime fiction in these works, but the actual relationship between the two genres of crime fiction and realism has not been fully developed. By studying the conventions of crime fiction, along with its antecedent, the Gothic, and their influence on Franko, the author shows the make-up of the early Ukrainian crime fiction genre and points to its importance in understanding Franko’s vacillation between realist and modernist tendencies. As she argues, the scales of his vacillation are tipped toward modernism in its decadent form, an existential void that characterized fin de siècle Europe. Hence, Franko’s “ideal” or programmatic realism (defined by Franko as a literary style with a didactic tendency aimed at educating society), which he introduced under the appealing cover of crime and Gothic motifs, ultimately failed him. The author proposes that it is the creative modes (Gothic and crime fiction) that Franko chose for voicing his ideas about social reforms that led him, unsuspectingly, away from his programmatic goal and toward the decadent aspects of modernism.
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Critics have noted similarities between Nikolai Gogol”s three early horror stories (Vecher nakanune Ivana Kupala [St. John’s Eve], Strashnaia mest’ [A Terrible Vengeance], and Vii) and the works of his famous German predecessor Ludwig... more
Critics have noted similarities between Nikolai Gogol”s three early horror stories (Vecher nakanune Ivana Kupala [St. John’s Eve], Strashnaia mest’ [A Terrible Vengeance], and Vii) and the works of his famous German predecessor Ludwig Tieck. While some scholars have speculated on the relationship between his Ukrainian tales and the works of E.T.A. Hoffmann, detailed comparisons between the two authors have been limited only to Gogol”s “St. Petersburg” stories. By comparing and contrasting Gogol”s Vii to Hoffmann’s Die Elixiere Des Teufels [The Devil’s Elixirs], this article argues that the “Ukrainian tales” also betray some influence of Hoffmann, and that, in particular, there are intertextual connections between these two stories. This is evident on several levels: (1) in the similar depiction of the monstrous beings that appear to the protagonists in both works and influence their lives; (2) in the transformation of the protagonists into villains under the power of evil forces; (3) in the presence of a sinister double, at the “hands” of which the protagonists find their death; and (4) in the doubling of a female into an innocent and a corrupt (lustful) being. The paper contends that Gogol’ was recapitulating, consciously or unconsciously, Hoffmann’s The Devil’s Elixirs in Vii both in terms of plot detail and, as my psychoanalytical reading shows, also on the level of latent content found in both works.
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"This article deals with Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnov''ianenko’s “Dead Man’s Easter” [Mertvets'kyi Velykden'] [1834] from a hitherto overlooked Gothic perspective. Given the fact that the Gothic topoi in this story are cloaked in light-hearted... more
"This article deals with Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnov''ianenko’s “Dead Man’s Easter” [Mertvets'kyi Velykden'] [1834] from a hitherto overlooked Gothic perspective. Given the fact that the Gothic topoi in this story are cloaked in light-hearted comedy, it is examined through the prism of a theory developed by the British scholars Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik, namely, the comic Gothic. My study shows that the features of the comic Gothic are present in “Dead Man’s Easter,” but the story on the whole does not fully subscribe to Horner’s and Zlosnik’s model. The main obstacle lies in the hidden ambivalence that “Dead Man’s Easter” projects toward the supernatural horrors. Indeed, a close examination of the narrator’s voice reveals that for all the rationalizing and mocking views of the supernatural, the story covertly embraces the awe of the horrific that is characteristic of the serious Gothic mode. Such findings allow me to draw more generalized conclusions as to the nature of Kvitka-Osnov''ianenko’s Gothic, which I see as vacillating between the high and the low (comic) variations of the genre, and reflecting the process by which the Gothic phenomenon entered the Ukrainian literary canon. I also briefly discuss the implications my study has for Horner’s and Zlosnik’s theory by indicating how their position on the comic Gothic may be modified in view of Kvitka-Osnov''ianenko’s preromantic prose.
Дана стаття пропонує розглянути одне із ранніх химерно-романтичних українських оповідань, а саме, твір Григорія Квітки-Основ’яненка, «Мертвецький Великдень» (1834) з точки зору ґотичного жанру. Враховуючи той факт, що ґотичні топоси у цьому оповіданні представлені через призму комедії, в цій статті підіймається теорія комічної ґотики, розроблена британськими вченими, Авріл Горнер і Сью Злоснік. Моє дослідження показує, що елементи комічної ґотики дійсно присутні у «Мертвецькому Великодні» Квітки-Основ’яненка, але в цілому оповідання не відповідає в повній мірі моделі Горнер і Злоснік. Головна перешкода полягає в прихованій амбівалентності стосовно надприродніх жахів, яка просліджується в оповіданні. А саме, детальний аналіз голосу оповідача показує, що незважаючи на всі зовнішні і показові елементи раціоналізації і насмішкувате ставлення до надприроднього, оповідання Квітки-Основ’яненка містить потаємний страх до потустороннього світу, який є характерним для серйозного реєстру ґотики. Це відкриття дозволяє мені зробити загальні висновки про характер ґотичного у прозі Квітки-Основ’яненка, який я бачу на межі між високим і низьким (комічним) реєстром жанру, а також адресувати процес, за допомогою якого ґотика увійшла до канону української літератури. Дана стаття також коротко обговорює, які впливи моє дослідження може мати на теорію Горнер і Злоснік, і як їхня модель комічної ґотики може бути модифікована із урахуванням ґотичних творів українських романтиків."
Дана стаття пропонує розглянути одне із ранніх химерно-романтичних українських оповідань, а саме, твір Григорія Квітки-Основ’яненка, «Мертвецький Великдень» (1834) з точки зору ґотичного жанру. Враховуючи той факт, що ґотичні топоси у цьому оповіданні представлені через призму комедії, в цій статті підіймається теорія комічної ґотики, розроблена британськими вченими, Авріл Горнер і Сью Злоснік. Моє дослідження показує, що елементи комічної ґотики дійсно присутні у «Мертвецькому Великодні» Квітки-Основ’яненка, але в цілому оповідання не відповідає в повній мірі моделі Горнер і Злоснік. Головна перешкода полягає в прихованій амбівалентності стосовно надприродніх жахів, яка просліджується в оповіданні. А саме, детальний аналіз голосу оповідача показує, що незважаючи на всі зовнішні і показові елементи раціоналізації і насмішкувате ставлення до надприроднього, оповідання Квітки-Основ’яненка містить потаємний страх до потустороннього світу, який є характерним для серйозного реєстру ґотики. Це відкриття дозволяє мені зробити загальні висновки про характер ґотичного у прозі Квітки-Основ’яненка, який я бачу на межі між високим і низьким (комічним) реєстром жанру, а також адресувати процес, за допомогою якого ґотика увійшла до канону української літератури. Дана стаття також коротко обговорює, які впливи моє дослідження може мати на теорію Горнер і Злоснік, і як їхня модель комічної ґотики може бути модифікована із урахуванням ґотичних творів українських романтиків."
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"Oleksa Storozhenko’s (1806-1874) long story “Закоханий чорт” [Devil in Love] (1861) reveals close parallels to the eponymous novella of the French Gothic author, Jacques Cazotte (1719-1792; Le Diable amoureux [The Devil in Love, 1772]).... more
"Oleksa Storozhenko’s (1806-1874) long story “Закоханий чорт” [Devil in Love] (1861) reveals close parallels to the eponymous novella of the French Gothic author, Jacques Cazotte (1719-1792; Le Diable amoureux [The Devil in Love, 1772]). However, literary criticism left this connection uncommented on and emphasized only the folklore of Storozhenko’s work. This article aims to examine whether Storozhenko was indeed inspired by folklore alone, which would make his connection to Cazotte’s narrative coincidental. I will subject the folkloric stratum in his tale to in-depth analysis, utilizing a combination of motif (Thompson), tale type (Aarne, Thompson, and Uther), and structural (Propp) methods for the assessment and classification of oral narrative.
While my study shows that Storozhenko’s tale does invoke the universal folkloric motif of love between a mortal and the devil and adheres to Propp’s structure of a typical folktale, the application of the ATU index does not return any folktale type that could serve as a model for the ‘devil in love’ narrative. Moreover, a few collections of Ukrainian folktales that I consulted also do not have a specific tale that would at least remotely remind us of Storozhenko. Thus, my findings show that Storozhenko’s tale merely exudes a folkloric allure, which must have prevented the scholars from searching for its antecedents beyond strictly oral tradition. But the fact that Storozhenko selected folktale motifs that resemble Cazotte’s and stylized them in a similar manner, proves my hypothesis that the two are intertextually linked. This also shows that Storozhenko produced a peculiar mode of the Gothic that followed his French predecessor’s practice in utilizing metafolkloric allusions, but instead of exotic elements he turned to local Ukrainian legendary and historical tradition to fill its framework.
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While my study shows that Storozhenko’s tale does invoke the universal folkloric motif of love between a mortal and the devil and adheres to Propp’s structure of a typical folktale, the application of the ATU index does not return any folktale type that could serve as a model for the ‘devil in love’ narrative. Moreover, a few collections of Ukrainian folktales that I consulted also do not have a specific tale that would at least remotely remind us of Storozhenko. Thus, my findings show that Storozhenko’s tale merely exudes a folkloric allure, which must have prevented the scholars from searching for its antecedents beyond strictly oral tradition. But the fact that Storozhenko selected folktale motifs that resemble Cazotte’s and stylized them in a similar manner, proves my hypothesis that the two are intertextually linked. This also shows that Storozhenko produced a peculiar mode of the Gothic that followed his French predecessor’s practice in utilizing metafolkloric allusions, but instead of exotic elements he turned to local Ukrainian legendary and historical tradition to fill its framework.
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ABSTRACT: Critics have noted similarities between Nikolai Gogol'’s three early horror stories (Vecher nakanune Ivana Kupala [St. John’s Eve], Strashnaia mest' [A Terrible Vengeance] Vii) and the works of his famous German predecessor... more
ABSTRACT: Critics have noted similarities between Nikolai Gogol'’s three early horror stories (Vecher nakanune Ivana Kupala [St. John’s Eve], Strashnaia mest' [A Terrible Vengeance] Vii) and the works of his famous German predecessor Ludwig Tieck. There also exists some speculation concerning the relationship between his Ukrainian tales and the works of E.T.A. Hoffmann. However, a detailed comparison between the two authors focused only on Gogol'’s “St. Petersburg” stories. His early tales have been ignored because they were presumed to depend mostly on folklore. This article argues that there are intertextual connections between Gogol'’s St. John’s Eve and A Terrible Vengeance, and Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann [The Sandman] and Ignaz Denner. The paper contends that Gogol' was recapitulating, consciously or unconsciously, Hoffmann’s oeuvre in his works both in terms of plot detail and on a deeper psychological level.
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While there have been many studies devoted to the Gothic in European and American Romantic literatures, it has remained largely overlooked in Ukrainian criticism up to now, mostly due to political reasons. Firstly, this genre was excluded... more
While there have been many studies devoted to the Gothic in European and American Romantic literatures, it has remained largely overlooked in Ukrainian criticism up to now, mostly due to political reasons. Firstly, this genre was excluded from the Soviet canon as something that was considered reactionary in nature. Secondly, Soviet criticism traditionally interpreted Ukrainian literature as a localized phenomenon, which stemmed mainly from folklore, in contrast to a more developed, well-rounded Russian literature. Therefore, it was rarely presupposed that Ukrainian Romantic prose might have derived some of its elements from West European literature.
My dissertation aims to fill this gap in Ukrainian criticism. It outlines the manner in which the Ukrainian Gothic tradition came to exist, and connects it to the West European Gothic movement. My main research objective is to study how the three major Ukrainian Romantic authors—Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnov''ianenko (1778-1843), Nikolai Gogol'/Mykola Hohol' (1809-1852), and Oleksa Storozhenko (1805-1874)—engage the Gothic discourse in their horror oeuvre. My analysis reveals the hitherto overlooked intertextual links in their tales, which firmly connect them to the works of the British, German and French Gotho-Romantic authors, such as Charles Maturin, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Jacques Cazotte. To strengthen my intertextual argument, I also utilize psychoanalytical theory, which allows me to discover, in addition to close plot parallels, a common symbolism hidden behind the supernatural horror images in both Ukrainian and West European Gothic fiction.
My comparative analysis proves that the Ukrainian Romantics knew the original Gothic and borrowed from its various branches (such as the comic Gothic, the psychological Gothic, the frenetic Gothic), when creating their own version of the Gothic literary mode. What makes their texts especially interesting is the fact that they wove their cultural and religious experience, along with oral lore, into the adopted Gothic framework. As a result, they blended the Western Gothic foundations with Ukrainian themes and constructed the specifically Ukrainian literary world of horrors, while also enriching the general Gothic tradition with Ukrainian features. Unlike other European variations of the Gothic, their texts simultaneously awe and mock the supernatural horrors.
My dissertation aims to fill this gap in Ukrainian criticism. It outlines the manner in which the Ukrainian Gothic tradition came to exist, and connects it to the West European Gothic movement. My main research objective is to study how the three major Ukrainian Romantic authors—Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnov''ianenko (1778-1843), Nikolai Gogol'/Mykola Hohol' (1809-1852), and Oleksa Storozhenko (1805-1874)—engage the Gothic discourse in their horror oeuvre. My analysis reveals the hitherto overlooked intertextual links in their tales, which firmly connect them to the works of the British, German and French Gotho-Romantic authors, such as Charles Maturin, E.T.A. Hoffmann, and Jacques Cazotte. To strengthen my intertextual argument, I also utilize psychoanalytical theory, which allows me to discover, in addition to close plot parallels, a common symbolism hidden behind the supernatural horror images in both Ukrainian and West European Gothic fiction.
My comparative analysis proves that the Ukrainian Romantics knew the original Gothic and borrowed from its various branches (such as the comic Gothic, the psychological Gothic, the frenetic Gothic), when creating their own version of the Gothic literary mode. What makes their texts especially interesting is the fact that they wove their cultural and religious experience, along with oral lore, into the adopted Gothic framework. As a result, they blended the Western Gothic foundations with Ukrainian themes and constructed the specifically Ukrainian literary world of horrors, while also enriching the general Gothic tradition with Ukrainian features. Unlike other European variations of the Gothic, their texts simultaneously awe and mock the supernatural horrors.
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Tomislav Longinovic has compiled and edited a collection of primary and secondary sources that reviews characteristics and representations of the vampire -- a cultural symbol known for its longevity and global spread.
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In this recently published monograph, Tanya Zaharchenko sets two ambitious goals: to write a cultural history of Ukraine’s prolific and diverse eastern region (with its major hub in Kharkiv); and to introduce a group of newly emerged... more
In this recently published monograph, Tanya Zaharchenko sets two ambitious goals: to write a cultural history of Ukraine’s prolific and diverse eastern region (with its major hub in Kharkiv); and to introduce a group of newly emerged authors from that region, whom she calls, collectively, a “doubletake generation” (2). These authors (Serhii Zhadan, Andrii Krasniashchykh, Iurii Tsaplin, Oleh Kotsarev, and others) grew up during the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and their prose reflects an attempt to relive that experience, in the imaginary realm—hence the label doubletake generation.
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Anatoly Kudryavitsky’s volume adds to the recent efforts of scholars, translators, and enthusiasts of Ukrainian literature and culture to publicize that culture in the West. Along with translated collections of Ukrainian poetry and prose... more
Anatoly Kudryavitsky’s volume adds to the recent efforts of scholars, translators, and enthusiasts of Ukrainian literature and culture to publicize that culture in the West. Along with translated collections of Ukrainian poetry and prose by Mark Andryczyk (The White Chalk of Days: The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Series Anthology, Academic Studies Press, 2017) and Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky (Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine, Academic Studies Press, 2017), Kudryavitsky’s poetic anthology The Frontier (Кордон) invites an Anglophone reader to experience twenty-eight different voices from various parts of Ukraine.
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The editor Hannah Priest opens and closes her critical introduction to a cultural history of female werewolves with the following phrase: “The werewolf is an inherently contradictory creature,” adding a descriptor “female” before... more
The editor Hannah Priest opens and closes her critical introduction to a cultural history of female werewolves with the following phrase: “The werewolf is an inherently contradictory creature,” adding a descriptor “female” before “werewolf” in the second reiteration of this phrase at the end (pp. 1, 20). This premise becomes the subject of the subsequent eleven essays written by folklorists, film specialists, comparative literature scholars, students of Gothic and horror literature, and even video game writers and developers.
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J. Gordon Melton and Alysa Hornick put together a volume that will spare future vampire enthusiasts and scholars who are studying this mythical figure and its sociocultural background a long research session at the library. Their... more
J. Gordon Melton and Alysa Hornick put together a volume that will spare future vampire enthusiasts and scholars who are studying this mythical figure and its sociocultural background a long research session at the library. Their comprehensive bibliography features more than six thousand entries of English-language (and occasional
non-English-language) secondary sources of the vampire myth as it has been portrayed in print and visual media from 1800 to 2013.
non-English-language) secondary sources of the vampire myth as it has been portrayed in print and visual media from 1800 to 2013.