A comparative imagological study of the Irish and Ukrainian Great Famines in novels by Samchuk, Macken, Motyl and Mullen
Krol, Tatiana
(2019)
A comparative imagological study of the Irish and Ukrainian Great Famines in novels by Samchuk, Macken, Motyl and Mullen.
PhD thesis, Dublin City University.
A Comparative Imagological Study of the Irish and Ukrainian Great Famines in Novels by Samchuk, Macken, Motyl and Mullen compares and contrasts the formation of stereotypical perceptions between nations in Irish and Ukrainian fictions. Focusing on the novels The Silent People (1962) by Walter Macken, The Hungry Land (1986) by Michael Mullen, Maria: A Chronicle of a Life (1934) by Ulas Samchuk and Sweet Snow (2013) by Alexander J. Motyl, it examines the mechanisms in the development of negative stereotypes within the Self/Other dichotomy, intensified in the context of colonial oppression during An Gorta Mór in Ireland and the Holodomor in Ukraine. In these works of fiction, Comparative Imagology is applied to analyze the differences and similarities of ways in which the Irish and the Ukrainians identify, view and characterize their respective Other. To that effect, historical, cultural and socio-political developments of the 1840s in Ireland and the 1930s in Ukraine are studied, and the imagological analyses of the construction of auto- and hetero-images are carried out.
This examination of the Irish-British and Ukrainian-Russian relationships prior to and during An Gorta Mór and the Holodomor reveals that cruel treatment and injustice reinforce negative stereotyping. The investigation of the ways the negative characterization of a national character is maintained and perpetuated within the colonial contexts shows that negative perceptions of a group of people, leading to the rise of stereotypical and prejudicial attitude towards an entire nation, are largely power-based.
Demonstrating that the mechanisms of the formation of negative perceptions between people and nations have a similar pattern, this thesis explains that regardless of people’s national belonging, stereotypical perceptions of a national character are determined by power relations and that cultural distinctions are used to define the Self against the Other.