Il Daghestan oltre l’orientalismo sovietico: il romanzo “Prazdničnaja gora” di Alisa Ganieva

Abstract

The first part of the work considers the concept of Soviet orientalism in relation to socialist realism, especially focusing on the phenomenon of the so-called Soviet multinational literature and the Ciscaucasian Soviet novel. In the second part, Alisa Ganieva’s novel Prazdnichnaia gora [The Mountain of Celebrations, 2012] is analysed as a case study. It is argued that, besides being an example of the Soviet orientalist discourse, the parody of the socialist realist novel in its Dagestani version serves as a tool to deconstruct the Soviet representation of Dagestan. Indeed, through parody and multi-voicedness, Ganieva shows the Dagestani past and contemporaneity from an alternative perspective, thus offering a new way to narrate Dagestan.

Keywords

• Soviet Multinational Literature
• Realist Socialist Novel
• Soviet Orientalism
• Postcolonial Studies
• Post-Soviet Literature
• Alisa Ganieva