The European as the Other. In Krytyka, No. 9 (95), 2005, pp. 8–10.

The text is an authorial reflection on national identity, focused on analyzing the interrelation between the images of the Ukrainian and the European. The key analytical concept is melancholy, which the author interprets as a form of mourning for the loss of the imaginary – specifically, the illusory possibility of being “someone else.” In this sense, melancholy emerges not as a reaction to a concrete historical loss, but as an existential experience of recognizing the impossibility of an alternative identity.

The theoretical and artistic foundation of this reflection is Yurii Andrukhovych’s Twelve Rings, which centers on the figure of a European attempting to “come to terms” with Ukraine during his пребывання within its cultural and social space. By engaging this text, the author analyzes representations of Ukrainians and “Europeans” present in the broader discourse of Ukrainian literature and culture, with the aim of critically rethinking and deconstructing established notions.