BERTOLT BRECHT AND SLOBODAN SCHNEIDER: WAR. RELIGION. WOMAN. THEATER

Abstract

Global issues fixed in the diachrony of world culture by the concept of "war", as well as modern methods of its aesthetic interpretation, are seen today as extremely promising for Ukrainian literary studies, which is now actively rethinking how and through which models the artistic representation of modern military events should take place and their reflection in experience/living.
 The article offers a comparative literary analysis of B. Brecht's plays "Mother Courage and Her Children" and S. Schneider's "Snake Skin", in which, in the setting of the Thirty Years' War in Europe of the 17th century. contains deep ethical and philosophical reflections on the war as such and aesthetic reflections of two outstanding European playwrights on the war events of which they became contemporaries.
 If B. Brecht’s play has many literary interpretations, including in Ukraine, S.Schneider’s play is being interpreted by Ukrainian literary studies for the first time. The intentions and artistic resources of both texts are compared through the conceptual series War – Religion – Woman – Theatre. In interpretation B. Brecht’s war is horizontal-processual and geographically dispersed, in S. Schneider’s she is cyclical and permanent, localized in a closed topographical and mythological space.
 It is illustrated how playwrights conduct a dialogue with the world cultural tradition regarding religion/faith as a factor in modern war, the peculiarities of female figurative potential and female (not)subjectivity in aesthetic interpretations of war belonging to the 20th century are revealed, B. Brecht’s "epic theater" is compared and S. Schneider’s symbolic and allegorical theater. The study complements the problematic field of modern humanitarian reflections, activated by Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022.