Symbolic and Cultural Codes of Military Realities in Ukraine

Abstract

Modern ways of verbalizing a long-ago sacred concept, such as the deliberate killing of an enemy, who has threatened the existence of a kin or a tribe are investigated in the article. Such a murder in ancient times has been considered as a sacred act, sanctified by the necessity of survival, and therefore heroized. It is considered so now, but there is an unwritten taboo on direct statements on it because of the moral principles and remorse. The source material for this paper includes the published works of three well-known Ukrainian Telegram-channels and internet meme, promulgated from February 24, 2022, i.e. during the period of Russian-Ukrainian war. Four cultural-symbolic codes to express the concept of murder have become the most popular in wartime, namely obscene, spectacular, agrarian-industrial and culinary. They are used to create new euphemisms and paremias. The obscene code uses a fairly significant layer of vocabulary related to the lower body. The spectacular code is an indisputable product of modern mass culture. The agrarian and industrial codes also belong to the military mainstream, and some imaginary strategies for the use of war prisoners and enemy corpses are detailed with their help. The culinary code, in which the destruction of enemy troops is described as the process of cooking various meat and vegetable dishes with the help of fire or grinding, has gained particular popularity. New cultural-symbolic codes (except the spectacular) have a mythological basis, creatively reinterpreting and playing with ancient mythologemes. In particular, the mythological ideas about life as a vegetation cycle, about the eternally hungry death-devourer and about the culinary treatment of raw products with fire as a way of their civilizing have served as the foundation for the formation of new euphemisms, and ritual vituperation is used as a way of humiliating and morally destroying the enemies.