Artistic and publicistic component of modern military diaries (on the example of G. Kharchenko’s diary «An Artilleryman’s Diary»)

Abstract

In the process of survey writing, the main stages of creation and narrative features of the diary were investigated. It has been established that communicative guidelines and authorial conceptuality had influenced the poetics and typology of the diary. Despite the fact that some scholars recognize texts of this type as «works of art» and the analyzed work does not have a traditional diary composition, we classify this text as a diary-fixation of events, where the author is a combatant, eyewitness and participant in events, in some detail (in facts, documents, evidence) reflects the realities of war. At the same time, it is a socio-political diary, deliberately written by the author for publication. Focusing on a wide readership, publishing parts of the diary on social networks and online publications in the absence of objective information about the war led to the format of the presentation, genre features, influenced the chronology, lack of confession and privacy in the text, intimate moments and more. In addition, the diary clearly demonstrates the decline in the era of postmodern metanarrative (J.-F. Lyotard), in particular in the literature of non-fiction. The peculiarities of manifestation in the diary of artistic and publicistic origin are revealed and analyzed, among which there are the propaganda components, historical appeal, archetypes of Cossacks, critical attitude of reflection of the realities of war, usage of the spectrum of journalistic genres (article, obituary, portrait essay, etc.), essay type, presentation of humor and sarcasm, image system, etc. The text raises pressing social issues caused by the war: the development of the Ukrainian army, lack of national consciousness, etc., intensified social dialogue, the formation of public opinion, and self-determination of every Ukrainian. The artistic principle is implemented in the elements of lyricization, the aesthetical value of the diary (reflection of several emotions), compositional features (exposure, development of action, culmination, etc.), the system of images, and more. In general, artistic and publicistic components are harmoniously synthesized with the documentary component of the text.