Themes of War in modern clothing Culture of Ukrainians

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the content of prints on patriotic T-shirts that appeared after the full-scale aggression of Russia against Ukraine in 2022 or were developed earlier, but their informative reading has been updated. The source base consisted of offers for purchasing patriotic T-shirts on the websites of both manufacturers of such products and companies engaged in the sale of such goods. In the course of the study, the monitoring of posts on social networks «Facebook», «Telegram» was carried out, which discussed the advertisement of T-shirts with a patriotic theme or discussed the attitude of consumers to such products. Men’s, women’s and children’s Tshirts were taken into account. The study of contemporary patriotic prints is considered on the theoretical basis of the functioning of Ukrainian internet memes. Most T-shirt prints are the final stage of the meme life cycle, when the most successful ideas become an illustrative element of consumer products, including clothing. In addition, a participant observation of the clothing culture of the participants of actions in support of Ukraine in Budapest during the spring and summer of 2022 was conducted. The communicative and informational content of images on T-shirts was chosen as the subject of the study. The main ethnocultural themes presented on the prints were systematized and characterized. The first topic concerns the representation of the statehood and sovereignty of Ukraine through the state symbols such as the coat of arms, the flag, map outlines, and the inscriptions «Ukraine» in different languages. The second topic concerns the idea of the heroic Cossacks, which is an important historical myth in the formation of Ukrainian identity. The third topic reveals the aspects of femininity in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war, and the fourth – images of warrior-defenders. The fifth topic presents modernized representations of cultural and intellectual figures. Based on the importance of conveying to the general public a call to support Ukraine, we have selected the sixth topic of messages to the world. The seventh topic is the most variable, as it presents events as a chronicle of the war.