Ringvorlesung: From familial multilingualism to the construction of a complex cultural identity: the case of Lesya Ukrainka

Lecture held by Dr. Nikol Dziub, Paris/Basel

"Germany did not ruin but saved K[obylianska], showed her the wider European world, taught her ideas, taught her style (not in the sense of words, vocabulary, but in the sense of phrase, richness of form), and by developing her mind, thus educated her for conscious and intelligent service to her native land." 

(Lesya Ukrainka, letter to M. Pavlyk, 07.06.1899)

No one can fool her so easily. And yet hardly anyone knows her, just as Russian censorship tried to achieve throughout Europe for centuries: Lesya Ukrainka, to whom this lecture is dedicated, is one of the most original feminists and writers of the 19th century. Born in Ukraine, she spoke, wrote and translated (in) many languages (from Ancient Greek, Latin, over French and German, to Ukrainian, Russian, Polish…), and was to contribute significantly to a unique and innovative conception of a Ukrainian cultural community, in which both feminist and polyglot ideas played a central role. 
Lesya Ukrainka’s translations and contacts with intellectuals in the Habsburg Empire aimed to explore and secure the region's cultural and intellectual links with Europe, even after the Ems ukaz (a decree issued by Russian Emperor Alexander II in 1876) banned the use of the Ukrainian language in printed works in the Russian Empire.
Her multilingualism, partly related to the polyglossia of the territories she came from, enabled her, among other things, to keep pace with developments in European feminism and to fundamentally modernize Ukrainian literature by giving pride of place to the characters of independent women. More generally, for her and her fellow women writers, multilingualism and polyglotism were an essential part of building a Ukrainian national identity, an autonomous and both culturally and gender-emancipated Ukraine that wanted to share the democratic values of (other) European countries.

Dr. Nikol Dziub holds two Masters degrees from Kyïv's Taras Chevtchenko University and the ENS de Lyon, and a doctorate in French, general and comparative literature. Nikol Dziub was awarded the Prix de thèse 2016 by the Université de Haute-Alsace and the Université de Strasbourg, as well as the Prix Catherine Gide 2018 by the Fondation des Treilles' Centre André Gide-Jean Schlumberger. Her research focuses mainly on travel literature, exchanges between the Russian/Soviet and French worlds, and the theory of comparatism as it relates to the female question. She is currently working on an SNSF project entitled “Gender and nation in the biographical interpretations of Lesya Ukrainka's life and works: Ukraine-Russian Empire-USSR, 1898-2022”, and is a visiting researcher at the University of Basel.

Weitere Informationen zum gesamten Programm der Ringvorlesung finden Sie hier.

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