Can we remember the past without reliving it? As part of the Literary Research Group’s work within the project, Roman Veretelnyk has prepared a scholarly article examining Roald Hoffmann’s play "Something that belongs to you".
Roman Veretelnyk is a PhD in Philology, Head of the Volodymyr Morenets Department of Literature at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and a senior researcher of the project.
The article focuses on Roald Hoffmann’s autobiographical play, based on his childhood memories of Western Ukraine during the Second World War. Through the story of his own family, Hoffmann reflects on loss, memory, humanity, and the moral choices people make even in the darkest of times. The play is set in Philadelphia in 1992, where the protagonist and his mother, after many years of silence, are compelled to confront painful memories of the past. An unexpected visit from a guest from Ukraine becomes the catalyst for revisiting traumatic experiences and reinterpreting their personal history.
“As the play unfolds, the author offers no convenient interpretation of the horrors of the past, which are interwoven with memories of human kindness amid evil. The deeper the characters delve into the past in order to confront it — and themselves — the more complex that past becomes.”
The article demonstrates that the experience of war resists simplistic interpretations and clear-cut judgments. Through the relationships between the Jewish and Ukrainian characters, the play explores questions of responsibility, gratitude, forgiveness, and moral choice. For this reason, it remains deeply relevant today, as societies continue to grapple with difficult questions of historical memory, humanity, and responsibility.
The full article will be available this summer following the online publication of the project’s Imagological Collection on the project website.
This publication was prepared within the framework of the project “Jewish Heritage in Ukraine: Interdisciplinary Reflections through the Prism of Archival Documents, Culture, History, and Literature,” implemented by the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in partnership with UNESCO Ukraine and with the support of the European Union in Ukraine.
This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the project partners and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.