The article concerns features of the contemporary literary process in Ukraine and Belarus. Some theoretical issues are raised in it: periodization and phenomenology e.g. difficulties of unbiased evaluation of ambiguous originative biographies and pieces of writing. In the historical and literary aspect an attempt is undertaken to see the cause-and-effect relations in the development of East Slavic literatures after 1991 considering social and political changes (especially for Ukraine). The subject of research is the literature of the two ex-Soviet republics in Russian and national languages.