6533b870fe1ef96bd12d0586

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Buscar en la ausencia. ‘Lo soviético’ en los cuentos y las identidades cubanas

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RESUMEN Durante mas de tres decadas, la Union Sovietica penetro en todas las esferas de la vida cubana. A pesar de ese largo periodo de intercambio, lo sovietico no aparecia en la produccion literaria mas que en contadas ocasiones. Solo despues de la caida del campo socialista despierta la memoria de aquella compleja etapa historica. El analisis trata las huellas que dejaron la Union Sovietica y su derrumbe en la sociedad cubana y en la identidad de sus miembros por medio de su manifestacion en los cuentos contemporaneos escritos a partir de los anos noventa. La representacion de ‘lo sovietico’ y de ‘lo cubano’, de ‘lo ajeno’ y de ‘lo propio’ se examina con respecto al contenido y a una particular estilistica y estrategia literaria. A efectos de la teoria poscolonial, se interpreta el significado que sigue teniendo la Union Sovietica para los constructos identitarios. ABSTRACT The collapse of the Soviet Union evoked a social, economic, ideological and cultural upheaval in Cuba. It not only caused an economic crisis, but particularly led to the deprivation of certainty and utopianism. This instability is also expressed in literature. The paper will study Cuban short stories written after 1989. The object of investigation is the depiction of ‘the Russian’ as a representative of the Soviet Union and as a contrast to the population of the own. The opposition between ‘the own’ and ‘the other’ will be analyzed regarding content and particularly literary style and strategy. The alternating power dynamic and its corresponding literary expression are analyzed, and a resulting contemporary identity concept will be deduced, applying the postcolonial theory. The impact of the Soviet Union on identity construction as the former hegemonic power and its expression in contemporary short stories will be analyzed and interpreted.