Intertexts

Intertexts, Vol. 7, No. 1,2003 Displacement, Desire, Identity and the Diasporic Momentum”; Two Slavic Writers i n L a t i n A m e r i c a c c Vitaly Chernetsky C O L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y Inrecentyears,ithasbecomeincreasinglycommoninthesmdyofthecul¬ tures of both the First and the Third World to speak of the complex inter¬ twining of the construction and articulation of nationality and sexuality within the modern discourses of identity and community, and of the ways the destabilization and subversion of these identities by means of the fore¬ groundingofqueersexualpracticesposesachallengetothestiflingdogmas ofsocialorderingandopensupthevistasofalternativeidentificationsand communities.Perhapsthemostimportantmilestonesinthisdevelopment thevolumesNationalismsandSexualities(Parkeretal.1992)andFear ofaQueerPlanet(Warner1993).YetwhiletheSecondWorld,thatis,the former Soviet Union and its former East European satellites, historically providesasignificantshareofmaterialdealingwiththequestionofnational¬ ism(therecentyearsinparticularwimessedatrulyexplosivegrowtho nationalist discourse there), this scholarly trend is only beginning to pene trate Russian and East European studies. At the same time, although the discourses on engaged in acomplex way with diasporic discourses, experiences and spaces (many, if not most theorizations of nationalism in the past century arose m diasporiccontexts),thecontemporaryscholarlydiscourseondiasporasis only beginning to engage either with the questions of sexuality’ or to pay closerattentiontothediasporiccommunitiesofSlavicandEastEuropean origin.Thepresentessayisenvisionedasaninterventionintothesediscur¬ sive practices aimed at bringing them into aproductive mutual engagement. Inthecaseofthediscourseonsexualityindiasporiccontexts,animpor¬ tantpioneeringcontributionhasbeenmadebytherecentvolumeQueer Diasporas. In their introduction to this collection, Cindy Patton and Benigno Sanchez-Eppler argue for avision of identity as not merely asuccession of strategicmovesbutahighlymobileclusterofclaimstoselfthatappearand transmogrify in and of place. “. ..[W]hen ... abody that carries any of the many queering marks moves between officially designated spaces nation, region, metropole, neighborhood, or even culture, gender, religion, dis¬ ease—intricate realignments of identity, politics and desire take place” (3—4). Another unresolved tension between two critical discourses that the present essay intends to address is that between the discourse on diasporas and that on intellectuals in exile. Paul Gilroy asserts in his essay “Diaspora w e r e andofnationalism(s)are 5 0 I N T E R T E X T S and the Detours of Identity” that “[djiaspora lacks the modernist and cos¬ mopolitan associations of the word ‘exile’ from which it has been carefully distinguished” (330), yet Iwould argue that the distinction is far from clearcut and is fraught with numerous complications. Consider, for instance, the examples Edward Said chooses in the chapter “Intellectual Exile” in his vol¬ ume Representation of the Intellectual. They are Theodor W. Adorno, V. S. Naipaul and C. L. R. James (47-64; we may add to this list the figure of Said himself). In neither case we can speak of the particular person without invoking the important (if not always strongly articulated or actively embraced) presence of diasporic concerns in their work and lived experi¬ ences. Moreover, this consideration allows us to define acertain force field of productive tension determined by the parameters of the diasporic/exiled intellectual’s engagement with, first, her/his local diasporic community; sec¬ ond, the larger—“imagined”—diaspora (sustained, in full accordance with Benedict Anderson’s thesis, with the help of print—and now also electron¬ ic—media that connects the diasporic communities dispersed around the globe); third, the local populace, both in the course of everyday living and in the interaction vwth the intellectual circles; and finally, “the world,” that is, certain universal themes and concerns with which the particular diasporic intellectual is trying to grapple (which themselves undergo aprofound impact of diasporic existence). Ibelieve that afruitful approach to the dis¬ tinctionbetweenthediasporicandtheexilicwouldbethroughhighlighting the collective, communitarian aspect of the former, in contrast to the indi¬ vidualist overtones of the latter. Yet the construction of the self is of necessi¬ ty involved with processes of social interaction; the diasporic, then, puts greater emphasis on the “outreach” to others marked through displacement and liminality, while the exilic focuses to agreater extent on the psychic trau¬ ma of displacement. In this essay, Iconsider two instructive—and still relatively little-studases of such interactions of the diasporic and the exilic, articulated in the lives and work of two writers who spent the greater part of their lives as members of Slavic diasporic communities in Latin America, Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969), who lived in Argentina from 1939 through 1963, and Valerii...