Avtobiografija

Introduction to the 13th issue of AvtobiografiЯ

Andrea Gullotta — 2025-11-15

Introduction: Autobiography of Socialist Trauma

Andrea Gullotta — 2025-11-15

Autobiographies and Soviet Trauma: Ol’ga Adamova-Sliozberg's Case. Preliminary Remarks

Simone Guagnelli — 2025-11-15

The present article proposes a first reconstruction of the complex editorial path of Ol’ga Adamova-Sliozberg’s memoirs Put’ [Path]. The ultimate goal of the research is to provide a coherent analytical rendering of the genesis and textual dynamics of the work and to understand whether some authorial and editorial choices may be seen as traces of trauma. Bearing in mind the perspective of trauma – considered here as a potentially useful interpretative key in cases where textual or structural clues can be detected – it is possible to read the cultural documents linked to the memory of Soviet repression also in terms of their linguistic and compositional signals. Thus, the philological work understanding of the relation between trauma and representation in autobiographical works. on the texts by authors who underwent repression may help to get a clearer

The Repressed Body in the Existential Experiences of Vasil' Stus

Natalia Lebedyntseva — 2025-11-15

The article explores the discourse of corporeality in the poetic works of Vasyl’ Stus. In situations of constant external control (prison, exile, special regime camp), the existential conflict characteristic of Stus’s artistic worldview intensifies. The themes of internal rupture between body and spirit become more pronounced. The poet conceptualizes the soul and body not as identical to the subject; they are separated from ‘themselves’ and transcend the boundaries of the integrated, transcendent ‘I’. As a result, the physical world in which the artist exists becomes a space of non-presence. Instead, the motif of sleep as a memory-dream is activated, returning to the dreamer sensations stored in the emotional memory of the body. This conscious ‘inward journey’ becomes a form of ‘internal emigration’, allowing the poet to exist in conditions intolerable for such existence: outside his physical body, yet within the mental body’s force field.

Memoirs of Trauma Halfway Between History and Literature: Dragoslav Mihajlović

Rosanna Morabito — 2025-11-15

Dragoslav Mihailović’s experience in a concentration camp only appears in his literary works in 1990, with the publication of the first volume of Goli otok, a collection of testimonies from former inmates of the camp on the Adriatic Island. The autobiographical introduction to the first volume of Goli otok written by Mihailović differs from the documentary approach of the volume, enabling an analysis of the relationship between literary writing and the processing of trauma.

“With Ukraine in the Heart”: From the History of Ukrainian Autobiography in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Tetiana Cherkashyna — 2025-11-15

This article is devoted to the study of the history of Ukrainian autobiography. The object of analysis is Ukrainian autobiographies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, written by well-known Ukrainian writers, ethnographers, and public and cultural figures of that time who contributed to the formation and affirmation of Ukrainian statehood. The article examines the autobiographies of Volodymyr Antonovych, Dmytro Bahalii, Oleksandr Barvins’kyi, Mykhailo Hrushevs’kyi, Mykhailo Drahomanov, Sofiia Rusova, Yevhen Chykalenko, and other well-known Ukrainians who had a clearly defined view of life and were active members of hromadas (Ukrainian intelligentsia societies) and of the scholarly and political societies of the time and who were, for this reason, often persecuted by the state. The autobiographies analysed here were among the first examples of classical Ukrainian autobiography to comprehensively reveal the life and creative path of the autobiographers. These texts were structured according to a classical scheme: family history, the birth of the author, the specifics of their family upbringing, school, and university education, their professional and social activities. At the same time, they also contained blocks typical of the description of a person’s life at that time related to the social and academic activities of the authors which centred on the Ukrainian national cause. Often, Ukrainian autobiographies of this period functioned as apologias. An important element of these texts was to leave a ‘living testimony’ to the autobiographer’s life, the lives of the people around them, the moods and interests that prevailed in the society of the time, and the socially significant events that the autobiographer witnessed or participated in.

Memoria e finzione tra continuità, interruzioni e cesure: il (macro)testo-vita nel ciclo pseudoautobiografico Legenda o samom sebe di A.M. Remizov

Maria Teresa Badolati — 2025-11-15

This paper aims to investigate the complex relationship between life and literature, reality and fiction in the work of Aleksei Mikhailovich Remizov (18771957), a multifaceted and prolific prose writer, graphic artist, and calligrapher. Despite a solitary and isolated creative journey, long overlooked by critics, Remizov is now recognized as one of the most original figures in twentiethcentury Russian culture.

The analysis focuses on his pseudo-autobiographical cycle Legend about Myself [Legenda o samom sebe], written during his emigration. The cycle includes eight ‘memoir’ texts which, despite their complete temporal misalignment, cover the period from 1877 to 1954. In these texts, Remizov retraces, reinterprets, and reinvents his own human and creative journey in a uniquely original way, filtered through the fantastical categories of childhood and fairy tale. The continuous intertwining of fantasy, dream, and reality imparts a magical and irrational quality to Remizov’s autobiographical work.

Истина это источник. Иван Вырыпаев о себе, своeм искусстве и имманентной любви

Giulia De Florio — 2025-11-15

The Truth is a Source. Ivan Vyrypaev about Himself, His Art and Immanent Love

An interview with the actor and playwright Ivan Vyrypaev by Giulia De Florio.

Wasil Bykau. 2023. Długa droga do domu (Wrocław – Wojnowice: KEW)

Bartosz Osiewicz — 2025-11-15

Панченко, Анатолий (под ред.). 2022. “Ах, скорее бы мир!” Письма прапорщика Д. И. Шишакина. 1914–1918 гг. (Новосибирск: Сибирское отделение Российской академии наук, Государственная публичная научно-техническая библиотека)

Jaroslav Golubinov — 2025-11-15

Authors

Andrea Gullotta — 2025-11-15