THE WAR DIMENSION OF LITERATURE IN CONTEMPORARY ESSAY WRITING

Abstract

Contemporary war literature demonstrates the emergence of new interpretative tendencies shaped both by the prolonged Russian-Ukrainian military confrontation and by the existential exhaustion experienced by individuals in this war. The traumatic experience endured by Ukrainians in recent years has transformed into an important foundational artistic narrative, to the creation of which literature has contributed perhaps more than any other art form. However, it is worth noting that while, in the first years after 2014, authors mainly turned to fictional genres – novellas, short stories, and novels – the period following the full-scale Russian invasion has seen literature increasingly articulate war without the protective veil of fiction. Consequently, authorial diaries, memoirs, testimonies, and essays are being published ever more frequently. Even poetry has altered its lyrical nature, becoming harsher, more rational, and at times journalistic.
The author of this article proposes an analysis of essay collections by contemporary Ukrainian writers Artem Chekh, Artem Chapai, and Artur Dron as examples of how contemporary texts shape the language of war while simultaneously being transformed by this process. The study primarily focuses on how writers with direct frontline experience perceive literature – both classical works and texts written amid traumatic events. While questioning literature’s ability to fully convey the deepest pain of a person who has encountered death, these authors nevertheless demonstrate through their own texts the necessity of creating a literary discourse of this war. This necessity is connected both to the historical experience of suppressing the Ukrainian word and to the urgent contemporary need to document the war from within.