Abstract
Russophone poet Galina Itskovich wrote the statement serving as the title of this text about the identity of her native Odesa, Ukraine in 2023, more than a year and a half after the full-scale invasion by Russia. I propose an examination of the relationship of contemporary Odesan writers to the Russian language. Sources for this examination include the work of writers in or from Odesa such as Galina Itskovich, Maria Galina, Oleg Fesenko, and Igor Bozhko. To discuss what this situation means for translation, such as is demanded by Ukraine’s 2019 law on the status of the Ukrainian language, I use the ideas of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o as a critical lens for establishing a decolonial approach to considering Russophone literary writing in Odesa after February 2022. Of specific use for this project will be Ngũgĩ’s ideas about how a colonial language such as English or Russian, while not necessarily being a language utilized by a given writer themselves, can be utilized as an interlanguage for translation between subjugated languages such as Gĩkũyũ or Ukrainian. The tension surrounding Russian can open a discourse on translation between Russian and Ukrainian in Ukraine. While the war continues, translation cannot determine what the relationship between these languages will be. But translation can help articulate questions about the relationship between colonialism and language.
Recommended Citation
Singleton, Ian R.
(2024)
"Odesa Will Never be a 'Russian' City Again,"
Living in Languages: Vol. 3, Article 3.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/liljournal/vol3/iss1/3
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