Unmasking the History: Woman’s Eternal Return in Milan Kundera’s and Yuri Kosach’s Narratives

Both East Central European émigré writers, Milan Kundera and Yurii Kosach, project their vision of history and displacement on the images of women. In their novels, love stories and the female experience are comparable to the national narrative and the nation itself. In Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) and Regina Pontica (1987), women’s images express the uncertainty of male’s position in times of historical turmoil. Unbearable Lightness of Being is concentrated upon two images of women, Tereza and Sabina. First embodies homeland and another – displacement, being equally important. This dissolution demonstrates that (1) the whole enduring national narrative is impossible; (2) nation-making varies between homeland and other spaces. Regina Pontica presents the story of woman in exile which is repetitive in different European countries. The female image indicates that (1) one vision of national narrative is possible; (2) displacement is an alternative position in turbulent historical times. Both authors illustrate history as repetitive: in Kundera’s novel this idea is accented through Nietzsche’s concept of “eternal return” of both Tereza and Sabina. In Kosach’s story, this idea is accented through the repetitive plot of lifelong romance with one woman. Symbolically, the image of woman reflects the author’s position on displacement regarding language: while Kundera wrote his novels both in Czech and French languages, Kosach used Ukrainian, even though he spent his last 50 years in the USA. Thus, national narratives on displacement, read from the female perspective, demonstrate different types of cultural sensitivity and history-making.