Reading time in space: Reflections on Victoria Amelina’s novel Home for Dom

Abstract

The subject of this article is the Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina’s attempt to interpret time within the space of a city with a multicultural and difficult history, in her novel Home for Dom (2017). Interpreting the phenomenon of Lviv’s urban space, Amelina employs shifting narrative optics. She traces the imprints of “grand” history through the perceptions of “ordinary” people and their storytelling. Major events in the life of the city and the state during the period of Ukrainian independence are outlined in the novel with a sense of detachment, rather than in-depth analysis. However, this is the writer’s conscious intention, modeling the perception of space and time from the perspective of the ordinary protagonist. Amelina’s novel is a family saga. Its protagonists include the retired Soviet colonel Tsilyk, his daughters, and his granddaughters. The Tsilyk family feels alienated within a Ukrainian city; through their experience, they embody both the rupture in the continuity of historical time and a sense of longing generated by the incompleteness and transitory nature of existence. At the same time, the Soviet legacy with which they live – or which they are forced to endure – also claims a place within local history. The city is reflected as a variegated mosaic in a period of social transformation. The experience of living in the space depicted is connected with learning Lviv’s secrets, as well as with a special mission in the contemporary world.