Between the West, Ukraine, and Russia: Identities, Myths, and Traumas in Post-Soviet Russian-Language Literature and its Reception in Nordic Criticism

The political developments in Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union have vividly demonstrated the difficulties the West faces in viewing Russia through an objective lens. The mystique surrounding Russia has deep roots, nourished by the Russian intelligentsia’s numerous reflections on the perennial question: “What is Russia?”

Prominent thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries, such as Vasily Rozanov, Ilya Iljin, Vladimir Solovyov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Fyodor Tyutchev, have articulated ideas that not only shaped Russia’s identity but also influenced the stereotypes that have characterized the West's perception of the country since the 19th century. While these stereotypes have undergone certain transformations, they persisted even after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has served as a catalyst for a profound and necessary re-evaluation of Russian identity and the West’s perception of it.

The interpretation of literature can contribute to a deeper understanding of the sociocultural and geopolitical processes unfolding over time. Simultaneously, these geopolitical processes influence literary interpretation, creating a reciprocal and temporally bound dynamic. Literature holds a unique relationship with time; it reflects on what has transpired and anticipates what is yet to come. Its prophetic nature allows us to consider historical processes in their development, offering possibilities to foresee social, cultural, and even geopolitical shifts.

The overarching aim of the project, “Between the West, Ukraine, and Russia: Identities, Myths, and Traumas in Post-Soviet Russian-Language Literature and its Reception in Nordic Criticism,” is to analyze the portrayal of Russia’s identities, myths, and traumas, as well as the depiction of the West’s geopolitical, sociological, economic, and historical characteristics in Russian-language post-Soviet literature from 1991 to 2023. With a focus on Swedish and Finland-Swedish criticism, the project also seeks to examine how the West engages with the voices of Russian-language literary figures and how perceptions of the post-Soviet literary heritage have evolved from 1991 to 2023. Additionally, the project aims to explore how post-Soviet voices from Russia, Ukraine, and to some extent Belarus, differ in their representations of post-Soviet traumas and identities, and how these voices relate to one another.

Olga Engfelt is a literary scholar, author, and publicist with a distinguished academic background. She earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy with a specialization in Comparative Literature at Åbo Akademi, where she defended her dissertation, The Poetics of Childhood: Oscar Parland’s Riki Trilogy in the Russian Literary Context, in December 2018. Engfelt’s postdoctoral project, The Path Between West and East: Tito Colliander’s Transcultural Journey, explores the dialogue between Finnish-Swedish minority literature and Russian literature, as well as the broader cultural and literary connections between Western and Eastern Europe.

Currently, she serves as a publicist for Nya Argus and has published two collections of literary short stories. Since January 2024, she has been an affiliated researcher at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies in Uppsala, where she conducts research on the project Between the West, Ukraine, and Russia: Identities, Myths, and Traumas in Post-Soviet Russian-Language Literature and its Reception in Nordic Criticism.