Post-traumatic narrative and strategies of overcoming trauma in the novel “The Notebook of Katerina Suvorova” by Lіnor Goralik

Abstract

The article examines the novel The Notebook of Katerina Suvorova by Linor Goralik through the prism of narrative strategies of representing trauma. Particular attention is paid to the artistic representation of the traumatic consequences of punitive psychiatry, which are considered in a broad socio-cultural and historical context. The work uses an interdisciplinary approach that combines the concepts of trauma studies and narrative theory, in particular the concepts of “acting out” and “working through” (D. LaCapra), as well as the concept of an unreliable narrative instance.

The analysis of the text shows that the narrative structure of the novel is based on fragmentation, repetitive motivational elements, and pseudo-documentary inserts that emphasize the traumatic experience of the protagonist. The fictional city of Tukhachevsk, where the story takes place, appears as an inversion of the St. Petersburg myth, which creates an additional level of interpretation of the space of repression and alienation. Particular emphasis is placed on the escapist mechanisms used by the protagonist to compensate for the loss of her unborn child: the imaginary world, saturated with Christian symbolism, is gradually destroyed by external circumstances, which accompanies the process of working through trauma. The protagonist's imaginary world appears not just as a means of protection from reality, but as a complex mechanism of transformation of traumatic experience, which allows us to trace the fine line between the experience of loss and the possibility of comprehending it.

The article also discusses the problem of an unreliable narrator and the double coding of the text: the external view evaluates Katerina Suvorova as a madwoman, while her internal narrative testifies to the process of integrating traumatic experience. Thus, the author of the article suggests reading Goralik's novel not only as a text about repression and its consequences, but also as a multilevel artistic reflection on the mechanisms of memory, spiritual resistance, and reconstruction of the traumatic past.