Authors

Khrystyna Monastyrska¹;  ¹ Aarhus University, Denmark

Discussion

The idea of the project is to show to an international audience how Ukrainians see the current war, as it is represented in a wide array of present-day multimedia materials, spanning from Ukrainian YouTube war song videos, over war posters and caricatures to artistic texts and illustrations.
The problem of war in the modern Ukrainian society is one of the most painful due to the aggression of a neighboring country. However, several contemporary Ukrainian popular artists, musicians, and authors publish online materials to try to convey the emotions of all generations of Ukrainian society and explain the situation in a way accessible to children, grownups, and elderly alike, by interpreting the war through the prism of a metaphoric and allegorical worldview. The purpose of this investigation is to find out the specifics of the objectification of the concept ‘war’ in such contemporary cross-media materials.
Beyond the expected wartime patriotic discourse that emphasizes the importance of development of social ideals, state priorities, duty and responsibility to the Motherland, self-sacrifice in the name of sovereignty, etc., my investigation sheds light on other both humoristic and sincere uses of symbolic and allegorical artistic devices that points to a national laughter culture and draws on a complex set of intertextual and intermedial references to national traditions, folklore and fairytales.