Traditional Funeral in the Context of the Russian-Ukrainian War: Lamentation for the Fallen Soldiers

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Lamentation for the fallen soldiers is an important component of the traditional funeral rite. This tradition is updated in all regions of Ukraine under the influence of the Russian-Ukrainian war of 2014–2023. This is evidenced both by the expedition materials and video recordings made during the soldiers’ funerals published in social networks. The purpose and the task of the article is to trace the dynamics of the tradition of mourning over fallen soldiers during the 20th – 21st centuries and its transformation in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Records made by the authoress and video materials published in social networks have formed the source base of the research. The mother’s wail for her dead son has been recorded during the ritual for the first time in the history of Ukrainian folkloristics. This example marks the scientific novelty of the article. The very little amount of the texts has been recorded during the funeral, while the main collections include records made to order. This fact defines the value of this recording. According to the authoress’s observations, heroes are mourned collectively in the villages as well as in the cities. Mourning usually happens in the traditional places (in the own house, in the yard, іn the parish church, in the square of the city or village, on the road to the burial place, at the cemetery and over the soldier’s grave). The wailing lasts from receiving the news about the death till the end of the funeral, as well as during the memorial days. Traditionally women (mother, widow, sister, daughter, close relatives, neighbours, villagers) perform mourning. The authoress has noticed that laments depict the local folklore tradition and come from the folklore environment, that’s why performers intuitively reproduce the archaic forms they remember of the laments in their regions. The texts of lamentations are addressed traditionally to the fallen warrior. The main motives include the story of the life and circumstances of the soldier’s death, the deep feelings of the mother and the widow after the heavy grief, promises to visit his grave, to raise children. A strong idealization of the fallen warrior is also traditional. It is concluded on the base of the authoress’s own observations, that in spite of certain innovations that appear under the influence of wartime, laments for fallen soldiers preserve the traditional verbal, musical and action forms, as well as local and regional features of performance. Its structure depicts traditional functions, in particular, psychotherapeutic, communicative, informational, consolidating. However, in the process of globalization such new forms of mourning as naive poetry, memoirs and appeal letters to fallen soldiers have emerged. Such new forms are characterized by rhythmic verse, poetic techniques and formulas common to the studied genre. In this regard, the authoress considers them to be a written modification of the traditional folk laments.