Vol. 20 No. 2 (2023): Studi Slavistici XX (2023) 2
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Between Comparative and Postcolonial Studies: the Past and Future of Italian Approaches to East Slavic Literary Intersections

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  • Alessandro Achilli
Alessandro Achilli
University of Cagliari
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/Studi_Slavis-14925

Published 2024-01-29

Keywords

  • Italian Slavic Studies,
  • Belarusian Literature,
  • Russian Literature,
  • Ukrainian Literature,
  • Comparative Literature,
  • Postcolonial Studies
    • ...More
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How to Cite

Achilli, A. (2024). Between Comparative and Postcolonial Studies: the Past and Future of Italian Approaches to East Slavic Literary Intersections. Studi Slavistici, 20(2), 229–239. https://doi.org/10.36253/Studi_Slavis-14925

Copyright (c) 2024 Alessandro Achilli

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This contribution reflects on the state of comparative studies devoted to East Slavic literatures in Italy. Between the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century, Italian scholars of Slavic studies and the editors of Italian journals have made a number of interesting proposals on the subject. However, hyper-specialization has often hampered efforts to put theory into practice. I foreground some of these important methodological contributions by Italian scholars on comparative Slavic studies and discuss them both in the international context and with reference to other methodologies and research fields, most notably postcolonial studies. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February 2022, comparative studies at the crossroads of Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian cultures have become a thorny issue. Scholars should seek to strike a balance between a philological approach and the ethical need to respect the different cultural orientations of East Slavic nations.

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