Europe in Post-Soviet Autobiographical Writing

In modern Russian history, the concept of Europe has served as a main reference point in the formation of Russian national identity. This has given rise to a series of dichotomies, such as European individualism versus Russian collectivism, materialism versus spirituality and rationality versus emotion. In Russia, the genre of autobiography, with its focus on personal experience and the individual’s entitlement to public space, has therefore been perceived as a quintessentially European genre. As a result, other terms, such as “memoir” and “reminiscences” are often preferred. Thanks to the strength of the Hegelian-Soviet legacy and its historicization of personality, autobiographical writing has become a vehicle to describe the individual’s relation to the nation, rendering this type of writing ideal for investigations of national identity. This article examines post-Soviet works whose authors have specifically identified them as “autobiography,” thereby signalling an engagement with the European cultural heritage upon which that genre is founded. Among these works, the poet Novella Matveeva’s autobiography is singled out for close reading. Drawing on Boris Uspensky’s notion of Russia as a metaphorical Europe, Matveeva’s text is interpreted as an attempt to subvert the dichotomical division between Europe and Russia.