Is it possible to reconstruct the past if memory is always incomplete? Iryna Borisyuk invites us to look at this question through the lens of two novels — Sofia Andrukhovych’s «Amadoka» and Oksana Zabuzhko’s «The museum of abandoned secrets».
Both works address the themes of World War II, historical memory, and family trauma. However, the researcher shows that they offer different answers to the central question: whether it is possible to reconstruct the past. In Oksana Zabuzhko’s novel, the past is gradually reconstructed through testimonies, memories, and hidden connections between people and events. In contrast, in Sofia Andrukhovych’s «Amadoka», history emerges as a space of loss, silences, and gaps that cannot be fully filled. The closer the characters get to the truth, the more they realize how elusive it is.
“If we return to the question of control over the narrative in «Amadoka», we see that here the stories are not told by those who have the moral right to do so, as is the case in «The museum of abandoned secrets». In «The museum of abandoned secrets», those who know the truth are dead — which is precisely why the transmission of the truth about the past occurs in a mystical way, and this truth is conveyed through the voice of an empathetic and morally whole subject. In «Amadoka», those who know the truth are mostly silent, and those who speak are neither empathetic nor morally whole.”
Iryna Borisyuk pays particular attention to how both novels deal with the memory of a traumatic past. While for Zabuzhko, storytelling becomes a way to recover lost history, Andrukhovych emphasizes that all memory remains fragmentary, and that some losses cannot be fully comprehended or explained. The article demonstrates that contemporary Ukrainian literature does not offer a single perspective on the past. Instead, it opens up space for reflecting on memory, forgetting, and various ways of coming to terms with historical trauma.
The full article will be available this summer following the online publication of the project’s Imagological collection on the website.
This publication was produced as part of the project "Jewish Heritage in Ukraine: Interdisciplinary Reflections through the Lens of Archival Documents, Culture, History, and Literature", implemented by the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy with the support of UNESCO Ukraine and the European Union.
All publications are produced with the financial support of the European Union. Their content is the sole responsibility of the partners and does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Union.