ОСЛОВЛЕННЯ РОСІЙСЬКО-УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ВІЙНИ У ПОЛЬСЬКИХ ЛІТЕРАТУРНИХ РЕПОРТАЖАХ: ТРАГЕДІЯ ЛЮДИНИ В ЕПОХУ ПОСТПРАВДИ

Abstract

The Revolution of Dignity and the war in the East of Ukraine caused the active emergence and formation of a whole segment of the new national literature, in which a special place was occupied by non-fiction: reportages, memoirs and recollections of the direct participants of these landmark events in the recent history of Ukraine. On the other hand, the appearance of collections of Polish literary reports by P. Pieniążek and T. Grzewaczewski about the Russian-Ukrainian war in the Donbass, about existence on the front line, as well as in other quasi-republics on the territories of post-Soviet states, resulted in an active public discussion also in Polish society about the causes and cardinal and irreversible consequences of armed conflicts in the life of a person, family, nation. The article analyzes for the first time in Ukrainian literary studies the way in which the vivid language of witnesses of dramatic events in the territories over which the „shadow” of Russian imperialism still hangs, conveys their deep personal stories of struggle for their own „truth”, painful losses, daily reconstruction of the destroyed reality, evacuation and preservation of home as the place of the only refuge. The article discusses in general the way of awareness, structuring and acceptance of a new reality through a non-artistic presentation of reality. Separate research attention has been focused on the reporters’ and their co-interlocutors’ reflections on the complex process of identity formation in the struggle against Soviet nostalgia, ideological manipulation and Russian propaganda, regional contradictions and under the influence of traumatic experiences of loss. This is the first attempt to explore the insightful observations and conversations the two reporters had about the war’s touching of human relations – the civil- ian population living in the basements of bombed-out houses, and the military, defending the front lines (on both sides). With careful use of literary metaphors and comparisons, the reportages by P. Pieniążek and T. Grzywaczewski are yet another important voice in the literature on the war caused by Russia, in addition to Ukrainian self-reflection.