Tamara Hundorova: The Roma Neighbor in Ukrainian Literature
The Roma community has long played an important role in Ukrainian literature. Prof. Tamara Hundorova, who is currently a Visiting Research Scholar and Lecturer at Princeton University joined the Center for European and Eurasian Studies on 16 September to share insights about her most recent paper My Roma Neighbor. Drawing on the works of prominent Ukrainian authors such as Taras Shevchenko, Mykhailo Starytskyi, and Olha Kobylianska, Prof. Hundorova examined the depictions of Roma social, national, and gender identity in Ukrainian culture and history.
Prof. Hundorova began her discussion by stressing the dual representation of the Roma as both a symbol of the exoticized “Other” and a familiar neighbor within the Ukrainian national consciousness. Examining the poetry and paintings of Taras Shevchenko, often hailed as Ukraine’s national poet, she posited that Roma characters represented a nomadic and free spirited life in dire contrast to the more static and agrarian reality of the Ukrainian peasantry. Prof. Hundorova drew a connection between Shevchenko’s work and broader European Romantic movement, which often exoticized marginalized groups.
Moving forward through history, Prof. Hundorova discussed the work of Mykhailo Starytskyi, a major figure in Ukrainian drama and literature. Writing at a time of increasing Russian imperial control, Starytskyi was a champion of Ukrainian cultural revival and used the figure of the Roma similarly to Shevchenko, highlighting the dichotomy between the social “Other”, namely the “nomadic gypsies”, and the “settler peasants.”
Prof. Hundorova also paid homage to the unique contributions of Olha Kobylianska, one of Ukraine's most influential modernist writers, who brought a more nuanced perspective to the portrayal of the Roma. Set against the backdrop of Bukovyna, a region marked by its ethnic diversity, Kobylianska’s works reflected the complexities of coexistence in a multi-ethnic empire and paid particular attention to the connection between gender and identity. Prof. Hundorova maintained that unlike the more romanticized views of her predecessors, Kobylianska’s work often presented Roma in a more integrated light, reflecting the hybrid cultural reality of Ukraine.
An insightful discussion followed, during which Prof. Hundorova discussed the darker chapters of Roma history, particularly during World War II, when the German atrocities in Babyn Yar claimed the lives of Jews, Roma, Ukrainians, and others deemed undesirable in the eyes of the Germans. This tragic event, Prof. Hundorova argued, marked a turning point in how Roma were perceived and remembered in Ukrainian cultural memory as the Holocaust further alienated Roma from the broader Ukrainian national narrative.
Like much of her previous work, Prof. Hundorova’s paper My Roma Neighbor introduces a new path of interpreting Ukrainian literature, dismantling canonical views and making place for Roma representations. Examining the ways in which the Roma community has been orientalized in 19th century Ukrainian literature, Prof. Hundorova demonstrated that the Roma are an ever-present part of Ukrainian society. Their representation as outsiders portrays the deeper historical experience of the Roma across Europe and calls for a growing literature on Roma identity formation and culture.
