Remembering Eastern Europe: Libuše Moníková

Libuše Moníková presents in The Façade (1987) a range of cultures between Bohemia and Siberia, a Renaissance castle whose symbols are constantly redefined, and a range of gender roles enacted in relation to narratives of the nation-state in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. As the process of German unification casts women's concerns as secondary to the "genderless" goal of building a new German state, Moníková's depiction of intersections of gender and nation grows in importance. References to nation from Homi Bhabha and Benedict Andersen and to gender constructions from Judith Butler and Marjorie Garber inform the investigation theoretically. (KJ)