Authors

Discussion

Lina Kostenko’s poetry becomes a striking example of self-assertion for Ukrainians surviving in the lack of any opportunities, expressing the intertwining of struggle, nationalistic presence, and culture’s memories. Her works are not only resistant to the Soviet censorship, but they also provide a model for restoring cultural self-determinacy and political self-determination. It focuses on chore authors like Marusya Churai and others to trace how Kostenko's works of art achieve disintegration of the colonial script and reclamation of Ukraine's spatial voice within Eastern European Studies which has been shaped and dominated by western scholarship.

The experience of Marusya Churai allows Kostenko to combine historical and folk elements with the ideas of betrayal, survival, and cultural continuity. As Myroslava Tomorug-Znaienko observes in “Restoration of the Self through History and Myth in Lina Kostenko’s Marusya Churai” (2019, p.43), the final chapter portrays nature as the key to identity and personal renewal. Kostenko weaves history, myth, and the natural world to depict cyclical rebirth, with spring symbolizing renewal and resurrection juxtaposed against death as a precursor to transformation. This synthesis, as Tomorug-Znaienko highlights, underscores Kostenko’s message that self-restoration and cultural revival must align with natural truths, reflecting her broader vision of renewal through resilience and historical connection. The vocal story enables readers to re-examine the history of Ukraine as not, as they have often been led to believe, a subjugated victim of history but as an active resistor and self-definer.

Throughout the Soviet era, literature was both a weapon and shield for the people, for artist like Kostenko, it was always a source of power. This immense capability of being an artist comes with a risk as well, which exiled numerous artists but it also offered them an opportunity to become a voice of nobility. The very history of what art represents is the evolution of different cultures, which in the case of Soviet Union, sought to erase everything and turn many into slaves of its ideology. Kostenko’s body of work adds to counter this narrative – Ukraine is and will always be the torch on how Eastern Europe should be shaped.

Many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country still continued to struggle in finding its voice. For an artist such as Kostenko, the power of art will always lie in the importance of resilience and creativity. On the one hand, she has experienced the brutality of Soviet oppression, but on the other, she beautifully weaved her stories in a way that helped her nation, and story, become part of national love.

The impact of Kostenko’s work goes beyond literature and has changed the understanding and ways of interaction of Ukrainians with their cultural memory. The poetry of the author is aimed at the struggle against tran