Establishing National Identity in the Twentieth-Century China: Traces of Russian and Ukrainian Literature in the New Chinese Literature

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Date

2018-09-06

Authors

Korovianska, Veronika

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Publisher

University of Oregon

Abstract

Russian literature is traditionally regarded as one that served a model and guide for Chinese intellectuals in developing their national literature. It is also recognized that Eastern European literatures drew much attention of Chinese intellectuals in their quest for national identity and modernization. This thesis is aimed at providing a more detailed look at the Chinese- Slavic literary discourse of the 1920’s, focusing on Russian literature as a recognized literary “authority” of the time, and Ukrainian literature as an example of a literature of an oppressed nation, which went under both Russian and Eastern European “labels” at the time. I argue that challenged by a deep social and political crisis, Chinese intellectuals were compelled to develop a unique form of national identity, basing it on two usually mutually exclusive forms of nationalism, which manifested itself in the literary works of the period.

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Keywords

China and Russia, Chinese literature, National Identity, Nationalism, Russian literature, Ukrainian literature

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