THE SPACE OF WAR IN THE ULAS SAMCHUK`S NOVEL «WHAT FIRE DOES NOT HEAL»

Abstract

The article deals with the space of war in Ulas Samchuk’s novel «What Fire Does Not Heal», explores the problem of personal formation in liminal situations. Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine has intensified the need to reinterpret the tragic pages of history in contemporary literary studies. Particular attention is given to texts by authors who preserve the memory of the First and Second World Wars. Among those whose work centers on issues of identity, rootedness, national culture, and the struggle for a free future of the Ukrainian people is Ulas Samchuk.
The aim of this study is to analyze the dimensions of war in Ulas Samchuk’s text «What Fire Does Not Heal», and to define the specific features of the poetics of Second World War space in the novel. The research applies the method of geopoetic analysis to investigate literary toposes and their impact on self-sameness (identity), along with the cultural-historical method to characterize key events and phenomena within the spatiotemporal discourse, taking into account the dynamics of sociocultural aspects.
This scholarly study demonstrates that the war space in Ulas Samchuk’s novel is represented both in physical and identity-related dimensions. The physical aspect of military action spans locations such as Buscha, Hurby, Zdovbytsia, Zdolbuniv, Kostopil, Mizoch, Novomalyn, and Ostroh. The toposes of Derman and Rivne are the most extensively depicted in the text. The identity dimension is embodied in the novel’s protagonist, Yakiv Balaba (Troyan), whose trajectory evolves from hybrid selfsameness – split between the dominant ideologies of the time (Soviet and Nazi) – toward a clearly articulated Ukrainian identity.