The Invention of Female Aging: Women’s Experiences of Aging as a Practice of Everyday Life in Contemporary Ukrainian Short Prose

The article revisits the experiences of female aging through the lens of everyday life studies in contemporary Ukrainian short prose. It traces approaches to the study and definition of everyday life within the contexts of history, philosophy, anthropology, and cultural studies. The research explores the influence of everyday life on the existence of elderly women, focusing on how they navigate space and time in this framework. The article highlights the peculiarities of elderly women’s communication with the world and their own bodies. Special attention is given to the concept of home, understood as a space that both restricts women throughout their lives, serving as a metaphor for confinement in personal experience, and offers a potential zone of safety and creativity. The pragmatic and affective aspects of home in elderly women’s lives are emphasized. The cyclical nature of time for elderly women, which contrasts with linear historical time, is analyzed as a factor that ritualizes everyday life. The study closely examines literary representations of everyday practices in short prose by Artem Chekh («Raion D»), Iryna Tsilyk («Chervoni na chornomu slidy»), and Tania Malyarchuk («Zviroslov»). It identifies everyday rituals that help the characters interact with others, resist or be affected by aging, and adapt to a new stage of life. The article underscores the intrinsic connection between the body and the city, which also shapes the language of the characters. The necessity of transcending everyday life (through festive rituals or pivotal encounters with younger generations) is identified as a transformative moment for the stagnant existence of elderly women. The study notes the ambivalence of everyday life’s stability: on the one hand, it serves as a source of stability, while on the other, it limits the possibilities available to elderly women. Keywords: prose, literary gerontology, female aging, everyday life studies, contemporary literature.