UKRAINIAN TRACES OF CZECH PRAGUE IN ULAS SAMCHUK’S NOVEL “TO THE EDGE OF TIME”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the image of Prague in Ulas Samchuk’s novel To the Edge of Time through the lens of urban studies, literary geography, and cultural memory. The focus of the research is on the ways of representing Ukrainian émigré identity within the urban space of interwar Czechoslovakia, as well as on the mechanisms of “appropriating” a foreign city through cultural practices, language, and memory. It is established that Prague in the novel appears not only as a geographical location, but as a multidimensional cultural text that combines the historical experience of exile, the intellectual life of the émigré community, and the existential quests of the individual. The urban chronotope of the novel is analyzed, particularly the system of city loci (railway stations, squares, student centers, cafés, administrative institutions), which form a dynamic model of “Ukrainian Prague.” Special attention is paid to the Student House as a center of Ukrainian cultural and political activity, as well as to the role of urban space in constructing a national community in exile. It is demonstrated that Ukrainians in the novel do not dissolve into the foreign environment, but create their own symbolic space that functions parallel to the Czech one. The existential dimension of the perception of the city is examined separately, manifesting itself in feelings of alienation, rootlessness, and the search for identity. The generalized image of Prague as a “foreign city” functions as a space of the protagonist’s self-reflection and, at the same time, as a metaphor for émigré existence; the city appears as a space of duality, simultaneously familiar and alien, appropriated and estranged. The ambivalence of the urban environment is emphasized: it is both a space of opportunities and a space of loss. It is concluded that Samchuk’s novel constructs a distinctive literary map of “Ukrainian Prague”, where urban space becomes a bearer of historical memory, cultural identity, and the experience of Ukrainian emigration in interwar Europe.