Transit Culture and Postcolonial Trauma - Instytut Pileckiego

07.05.2026 () 18:00

Transit Culture and Postcolonial Trauma

Transit Culture and Postcolonial Trauma

Book presentation: "Transit Culture and Postcolonial Trauma"

May 7th 2026, 18:00 | Pariser Platz 4A, 10117 Berlin
Registration: https://forms.gle/ZAaZNCbeUrhXQzUX8


Tamara Hundorova explores in her book "Transit Culture and Postcolonial Trauma" transitional post-Soviet cultural consciousness in Ukraine at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The main themes in the book are postcolonial traumas in relation to past empires and old historiographical narratives; post-totalitarian consciousness, which is characterized by sociocultural ruptures, postcolonial resentment, and intergenerational crises; and post-memory as a means of overcoming historical and familial traumas. Against the backdrop of the Chornobyl catastrophe, the book examines the meeting of different generations and views the clown Verka Serduchka as a mediator between the transition from the Soviet to the post-Soviet world. The book focuses on three significant Ukrainian novels written between the two Maidans: The Museum of Abandoned Secrets by Oksana Zabuzhko (2009), Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan (2010), and Notes of a Ukrainian Madman by Lina Kostenko (2010).

Tamara Ivanivna Hundorova is a Ukrainian literary critic, culturologist and writer. She is a professor and head of the Theory of Literature Department at the Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and a professor and dean at the Ukrainian Free University.