A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes: Agency, Ideology, and the Paradox of Soviet Emancipation

Abstract

This study applies Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA) to Guzel Yakhina’s Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes, examining how language constructs gender, power, and ideology within both Tatar patriarchal society and the Soviet Gulag system. Through the analysis of speech acts, expressive syntax, and linguoculturemes, the research traces Zuleikha’s transformation from a silenced, submissive woman embedded in traditional Tatar ethno-religious structures to a more assertive figure shaped by Soviet universalist ideology. While the Gulag environment enables her development of agency through survival, labor, and self-expression, the study also identifies a paradox: her discursive empowerment coincides with the erosion of her Tatar–Islamic identity. The findings support decolonial feminist critiques suggesting that the novel frames Zuleikha’s “emancipation” as contingent on assimilation into Soviet secular modernity, thereby reinforcing imperial narratives that equate cultural abandonment with liberation. This FCDA highlights the text’s dual function portraying personal awakening while implicitly validating Soviet hegemonic ideology.