‘Not only Russian’: Explorations in Contemporary Russophone Literature. Introduction

Abstract

This introduction provides an overview of current scholarship on Russophone literature ‒ broadly defined as literature written in the Russian language by authors who do not identify as Russian ‒ and situates it within the broader transnational and postcolonial ‘turns’ in Russian, East European, and Eurasian literary studies. The author then outlines the thematic and geographical parameters of the cluster. Articles examine works of literature and media from Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and the United States, published primarily within the past ten years. Common threads uniting the articles in this special issue are a focus on identity politics and language ideology, the creation of new national ideas, responses to post-Euromaidan geopolitical struggles, and the confluence of contemporary writing and new media.