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DOI: https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2022.53.05.9
How to Cite:
Kobylko, N., Honcharuk, O., Horbolis, L., & Antonovych, S. (2022). Features of Modern Ukrainian Military Prose
(on the example of Bohdan Zholdak’s film story “Ukry” and Yevhen Polozhii’s novel “Ilovaisk”). Amazonia Investiga, 11(53), 92-
100. https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2022.53.05.9
Features of Modern Ukrainian Military Prose
(on the example of Bohdan Zholdak’s film story “Ukry” and
Yevhen Polozhii’s novel “Ilovaisk”)
Особливості сучасної української воєнної прози
(на прикладі кіноповісті «Укри» Богдана Жолдака та роману «Іловайськ» Євгена
Положія)
Received: February 3, 2022 Accepted: March 30, 2022
Written by:
Nataliia Kobylko40
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8123-4156
Oleh Honcharuk41
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1787-5244
Larysa Horbolis42
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4775-622X
Svitlana Antonovych43
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8553-820X
Abstract
The purpose of the article is to study the artistic
features of Bohdan Zholdak’s military prose
"Ukry" and Yevhen Polozhii’s "Ilovaisk". The
methodological basis of the study is complex and
is based mainly on the tools of traditional literary
studies (comparative-typological, comparative-
historical and specific-textual types of literary
analysis) using elements of motivational
analysis. The article examines military prose as a
phenomenon of modern Ukrainian literature;
genre diversity of works dedicated to the realities
of the anti-terrorist operation and the war in
Donbas; the main problems that writers raise. It
is determined that Bohdan Zholdak’s film story
“Ukry” shows “a noble, active, strong hero who
defends freedom, justice and universal ideals.”
Zholdak’s style (burlesque-postmodern)
depiction of characters is considered with their
positive and negative sides, true language and
emotions. Yevhen Polozhii’s novel “Ilovaisk”
was analyzed, based on the memoirs of soldiers
who survived the Ilovaisk pocket. It is
determined that the writer turns to the traditional
40
Candidate of Philological Sciences (Ph. D.), Associate Professor, Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs, Faculty No 6,
Department of Social and Humanitarian Disciplines, Ukraine.
41
Candidate of Philological Sciences (Ph. D.), Associate Professor, Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs, Faculty No 4,
Department of Foreign Languages, Ukraine.
42
Doctor in Philology, Professor, Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A. S. Makarenko, Faculty of Foreign and Slavonic
Philology, Department of Ukrainian Language and Literature, Ukraine.
43
Candidate of Philological Sciences (Ph. D.), Associate Professor, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, School of Philology,
History of Ukrainian Literature Department, Ukraine.
Kobylko, N., Honcharuk, O., Horbolis, L., Antonovych, S. / Volume 11 - Issue 53: 92-100 / May, 2022
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plot and depiction of heroes, using the features of
existentialism and naturalism, often resorting to
contrast in the reproduction of pictures of frontal
and peaceful Donbas, and ideological beliefs of
older and younger generations. It is proved that
in the works of modern Ukrainian literature there
is a deep rethinking of the war, which poses a
potential threat not only to the individual country
and its inhabitants, but to humanity in general.
The authors affirm the idea of peace as the
highest human value.
Key words: military prose, film story, literary
discourse, novel, Russian-Ukrainian hybrid war.
Introduction
The Russian-Ukrainian hybrid war has become a
powerful catalyst for the development of modern
literature. Today, a new niche in the publishing
market is filled with books about events in the
East of the country. Initially, military prose took
the form of a collection of Facebook notes,
memoirs of anti-terrorist operation participants,
reportage and documentary publications.
Subsequently, works of art were published:
novels, film stories, tales, novelettes. The writers
present their own vision of the war, drawing on
their experience, as each of them was either
mobilized to the front or visited the destroyed
towns and villages of Donbas with volunteer
help. The boom in military literature that we are
witnessing today shows that the theme of war is
related to the problems of culture, the desire of
artists to comprehensive and unbiased rethinking
it. Artists interpret events in the East, debunking
the myth of friendship between peoples, laid
down in previous epochs. The authors build a
new model of Ukrainian culture of the XXI
century.
Literary critics are increasingly turning to the
topic of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Thus,
Yaroslav Polishchuk (2016) and Olha
Derkachova (2017) in their scientific research
described collections of poetry about events in
the East. Anton Sanchenko (2019) researched the
most popular books about the ATO, the secrets
of their success and genre originality. Nina
Herasymenko (2019) and Sofia Filonenko (2015)
reviewed novels about the war by Ukrainian
writers. Maryna Riabchenko (2019), a literary
critic, analyzed the genre and artistic features of
combatant prose. Bohdan Zholdak’s (2015) film
story “Ukry” and Yevhen Polozhii’s novel
“Ilovaisk” are mentioned sporadically in literary
criticism, so the study of the artistic specificity of
these works is relevant.
The purpose of our work is to study the artistic
features of Bohdan Zholdak’s military prose
“Ukry” and Yevhen Polozhii’s novel “Ilovaisk”.
Achieving this purpose involves solving the
following tasks:
1) to characterize military prose as a
phenomenon of modern Ukrainian literature;
2) to find out the problem of genre definition of
Bohdan Zholdak’s work “Ukry”;
3) to investigate the truth of the characters of
the main characters of the film story;
4) to consider the real events that formed the
basis of the novel “Ilovaisk” by Yevhen
Polozhii;
5) to analyze the heroism and humanity of
Ukrainian soldiers who were on the brink of
life and death.
The scientific novelty of the work lies in the
systematization and deepening of the conception
about the structure of modern Ukrainian military
prose in terms of artistic tradition understanding.
For the first time, the subject of literary analysis
is a film story and a novel about the Russian-
Ukrainian war, general and special in each of
them.
Theoretical basis
At different times the phenomenon of war
considered by scientists as a natural state, a
counterweight to peace for the normal
development of society. Ivanna Stefiuk’s
scientific research “The First World War as a
Social Anomaly (Philosophical and Literary
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Aspects)” considers different approaches to
understanding the nature of war. In particular,
Kenneth Waltz supposes the state to be the cause
of the conflict, i.e. the war is purely political. In
contrast, John Keegan believes that through war,
society solves religious and cultural issues
(Stefiuk, 2013).
In the twentieth century, the problem of war and
interstate conflicts became quite acute, as
humanity has survived two world wars. The main
categories operated by the society of that time
were war and peace. At this time, the idea of
pacifism to condemn all forms of war as an
instrument of foreign policy is actively
spreading. We can learn about the political
consequences and economic losses of countries
involved in military conflicts from historical
sources, while fiction must convey changes in the
psychology and worldview of people who found
themselves in the vortex of war.
The war in eastern Ukraine has become one of
the leading themes of modern literature. In recent
years, many different publications about the
Russian-Ukrainian war have been published.
One of the first researchers of works on this topic
was Hanna Skorina, who compiled a list of books
about the ATO, which included both paper and
electronic publications, as well as online diaries
(Armyfm, 2019). The list numbered more than
400 items. According to Hanna, this is not
enough to form a “full-fledged literary layer”.
However, we can say that the number of authors
and works of art has recently increased
significantly and military prose occupies a
prominent place in the modern literary process.
Today, the authors depicting the events in the
East of the country are civilians and direct
participants in the anti-terrorist operation
(Slapchuk, 2015). According to research by
Oleksandr Mymruk, books by civil authors,
which include writers, journalists and volunteers,
are divided into two categories: “books of mass
literature and books of “high shelf” (Mymruk,
2019).
ATO writers can also be divided into two
categories. The first covers mobilized authors
and volunteer writers, the second – fighters who
showed a talent for literary work during the war.
The undeniable advantage of these works is that
the everyday life of the military is shown
truthfully, they are ordinary people who are
betrayed, left without help and used as living
targets. Heroes have such feelings as fear, joy,
peace, pleasure. They are not idealized, as is
often the case in fiction. In view of this, literary
critics distinguish combatant as one of the types
of “military prose”.
With the advent of combatant prose in the
modern Ukrainian literary process, it is
increasingly possible to trace the mention of the
concept of “lieutenant prose”. However, we
support the statement of Maryna Riabchenko
(2019), who believes that comparing works of
Soviet literature and modern “military prose” is
incorrect. The main focus should be on
differences: not all modern authors have the rank
of officer, most had nothing to do with the army.
As for the main function that relied on the works
of “lieutenant's prose”, it is the formation of a
person with the right views and beliefs.
Speaking of military prose, we cannot ignore
such a genre as anti-war novel. There is no
definition of this phenomenon in the literary
dictionary. The anti-war novel is similar to
military, fascist, battle, and military literature.
The difficulty of determining, according to
literary critic Kateryna Hurduz (2015), lies in the
differences between the methods of presenting
the war and its artistic interpretation. In
Ukrainian literature, the anti-war novel is not
associated with the works of writers of the “lost
generation”. Thus, the reflection of military
everyday life is influenced by national tradition.
“Тhe key genre marker of the anti-war novel is a
powerful humanistic pathos aimed at
condemning the war, exposing its criminal
perverted nature” (Hurduz, 2015, p. 133). Of
course, we cannot equate the anti-war novel with
modern military prose completely, but these two
phenomena are united by a true reflection of the
war and its consequences, a condemnation of any
armed conflict between states.
In our opinion, another important aspect in the
study of works on the Russian-Ukrainian war in
the East is women’s prose. Nina Herasymenko
(2019) presents “The Story with a Woman’s
Face” in her scientific research, noting that the
works of women writers are not intended to
aestheticize reality, but to give the reader the
opportunity to form their own opinion about
military events in the East of our country. The
genre of works of artists is also diverse. If men’s
prose is characterized by the creation of diaries,
memoirs, essays, women’s prose is mostly
represented by pure melodramas or has a
powerful melodramatic flow. Thus, using the
traditional literary plot, “writers were able to
artistically summarize the facts and real life
stories that embody the humanistic pathos and
national idea” (Herasymenko, 2019, p. 89).
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Maidan-themed military books evoke strong
emotions, such as pain and tender emotion.
Thus, military prose is genre-diverse. It covers
film stories, action movies, short stories, diaries,
memoirs, novels, melodramas. Well-known
writers and journalists are involved in its
creation.
Methodology
In our research we use the following methods:
descriptive, typological, contextual and cultural-
historical. The main one is the typological, with
which we found features of the image of war
theme in various literary works. Descriptive and
contextual methods are used in the study of
historiography to learn the problem of Ukrainian
military prose formation. By means of cultural-
historical method the specifics of the artistic and
stylistic structure of Bohdan Zholdak and
Yevhen Polozhii’s letters are revealed.
The methodological basis of the study is complex
and is based primarily on the tools of traditional
literary studies (comparative-typological,
comparative-historical and specific-textual types
of literary analysis) using elements of
motivational analysis.
Results and discussion
Bohdan Zholdak’s “Ukry” as “the best prose
book defending freedom, justice and human
ideals”
The first literary attempts of Bohdan Zholdak
date back to the 60s of the twentieth century. His
creative output includes plays, screenplays, as
well as many short feature, animated and
documentary videos. The “Ukry” film story has
twice been awarded prestigious prizes. Thus, in
2015 the writer received the Bohdan
Khmelnytskyi Literary and Artistic Prize from
the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine for the best
coverage of military issues in literature and art,
publicism and journalism, aimed at establishing
high humanistic, state-building ideals, raising the
prestige of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Also in
2016, the film story won the international literary
competition “Warriors of Light” in memory of
the hero of the Heavenly Hundred Mykhailo
Zhyznevskyi. The book is dedicated to Heorhii
Toropovskyi, an eighteen-year-old soldier who
died while returning to the anti-terrorist
operation zone after vacations. One of the
conditions of the competition was the presence in
the work of “a noble, active, strong hero who
defends freedom, justice and universal ideals”
(Karasiov, 2016). The writer managed to portray
a whole cohort of such desperate defenders of the
Motherland. Those were young men and women
who went to the war voluntarily, according to
their ideological convictions.
The author himself added the book “Ukry” to
combat prose. Literary critics disagree on the
genre definition. Thus, the following definitions
sound: “a mosaic novel”, a film story, a series of
film fragments, “national action, written in hot
pursuit” (Levchuk, 2016). “Ukry” does not have
a clear plot and consists of thirty-seven stories or,
according to Iryna Troskot (2015), “trench
fables”. In addition to the theme of the war in
Donbas, the main characters are common.
However, attentive critics note that Bohdan
Zholdak introduces episodic characters in
separate sections, which are no longer found by
the end of the novel.
Bohdan Zholdak’s war prose “Ukry” was
published firstly in separate publications. The
author himself was worried about the name,
because the word “ukry” began to be actively
used in society. Separatists in Donbas
contemptuously call Ukrainians “ukry” or
“ukropy” (that means “dill”). However, since the
beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian hybrid war,
these words have become branded, and chevrons
with them adorn the clothes of soldiers and
volunteers.
The annotation to the film story states that the
work is based on real events, and modern
Ukrainian soldiers are compared to the heroes of
Ivan Kotliarevskyi’s “Aeneid”. They
“desperately joke with death, defending their
land and honor”. Bohdan Zholdak writes short
stories in an ironic and humorous style.
In the film story, the events and actions of the
heroes are often exaggerated, seemingly
frivolous, but at the same time they show the
intelligence of the fighters. In borderline
situations, the guys find a way out even where the
logic of the plot cannot be. Humor has always
supported Ukrainian fighters, and with funny
antics they tried to diversify the gray military
existence, when they sat in the trenches for
several days, because the sky above their heads
was torn by battle shells. It was hard to call it a
life, but everyone remembered their purpose – to
protect the Motherland from the enemy.
Yar Levchuk (2016), exploring the elements of
Kotliarevskyi’s prose in the film story “Ukry”,
points out that Bohdan Zholdak writes some
episodes in such spirit. In particular, the
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fabrications of Zhora and Michurin about
neutralizing the enemy. These heroes are very
similar to the Ukrainian Cossacks, who
embodied the people’s strength of spirit and
indomitable will in the fight against the invaders.
The language of the work is also impressive:
alive, without complicated terminology, twisted
syntactic constructions. Transmitting the speech
of Ukrainian soldiers, the writer uses the surzhik,
which also indicates the reality of the events.
Bohdan Zholdak also adapts the Russian
language to the national tradition. Thus, we can
say that the film story “Ukry” is written in a
purely Zholdan style, even more – burlesque-
postmodern.
The writer in “Ukry” has an unusual approach to
the theme of war. His main merit is the depiction
of the front Donbas without the use of
documentary images. Ukrainian fighters appear
to be ordinary people, and the protection of the
borders of their native country, in their opinion,
is the duty of every conscious citizen, so we will
not see in the film story the pathetic glorification
of the ATO participants.
The main characters are fighters from one unit:
Lieutenant Michurin, Zvirobii, Gray, Hunter,
Zhora, Jura, Vlad-Stolytsia, Vitko,
Halia-Chupacabra. They are completely
different, and in a peaceful life their paths would
not cross. But the war unites officers and
poachers, experienced and young, men and
women.
Already at the beginning of the work, Bohdan
Zholdak sharply twists the plot, introduces the
lieutenant, who after his vacation returns not to
the unit, but to the positions surrendered by
Ukrainian soldiers, so he comes under heavy fire.
He received his call-up after a successful
operation, outwitting the separatists: “Everything
can be said about the lieutenant, but he had an
anticipation, and it did not fail” (Zholdak, 2015).
As a senior, Michurin was the first to go into
dangerous operations, because he felt responsible
for very young fighters, the youngest of whom
was only eighteen. In addition to courage and
bravery, the lieutenant had remarkable acting
skills. So, disguised as an old grandfather, he
handed the militants firewood with explosives,
which neutralized the entire unit: “At that
moment, a distant explosion sharply threw
darkness. Then it detonated again, and several
times more powerful” (Zholdak, 2015).
Skilled in martial arts is Zvirobii, who came to
the anti-terrorist operation zone as a volunteer:
“After prison, he immediately volunteered, not
because of any patriotic views or unemployment,
but because he looked at katsaps (Russians)
there, as they put themselves, although most of
our compatriots were among them, but it was the
most furious” (Zholdak, 2015). According to the
hero, poaching, for which he served his sentence,
is hard work, because you need to be able to
skillfully disguise and track down the prey.
Therefore, Zvirobii’s skills in the Russian-
Ukrainian war came in handy. As a true hunter,
he felt ambushes, disguised enemies, gunners,
who were often indigenous. As Bohdan Zholdak
writes his heroes from life, they can come out of
different situations with victory or failure.
Zvirobii is so obsessed with reconnaissance that
he loses his landmarks and is taken prisoner. Like
Ivan Kotliarevskyi’s Trojans, cunning helps to
avoid torture and death. The Ukrainian military
was not only able to escape, but also captured
several separatists.
The writer pays considerable attention to Zhora –
Heorhii Toropovskyi, an eighteen-year-old
soldier who died under unusual circumstances.
The young man was most fascinated by various
electronic devices: thermal imagers, stereo tubes,
radars, drones. He always paid attention to trifles,
at first glance, everyday things, but in the war
they had a hidden meaning. “Of course,
according to such unimportant observations, it
can happen as in boxing: when you blink, you
miss the most interesting thing – a knockout, that
is, somewhere you will not see the enemy, but
here Zhora had a reliable support: an
anticipation. He heard from the spine any
important changes in reality…” (Zholdak, 2015).
Sometimes he was called a Psycho or a
Psychologist for his ability to recognize people.
For the separatists, Heorhii Toropovskyi was
extremely dangerous, so they hunted for the boy
and in peaceful territory. “He was returning from
Kyiv to the front, and, of course, he had no idea
that even from the capital it was impossible to
talk about it on the phone. He was not easy, at
school he jumped on trains, at the anti-terrorist
operation he received a medal, saved his sworn
brothers from death, had a lot of experience, and
he was tracked down in a simple civilian train –
a soldier can be seen from afar – killed and
thrown out of the train” (Zholdak, 2015). Thus
the story of the Ukrainian fighter Zhora ended.
The author showed the Russian-Ukrainian war in
Donbas from different angles: through the eyes
of residents who divided into two camps: those
who supported the Ukrainian fighters, and those
who worked for the new leadership of the DPR
and LPR. Of course, the latter turned out to be
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more. Influenced by provocative Russian TV
programs, illusory ideas of a better life in a
separate territory, locals despise the Ukrainian
army, calling the fighters “ukrops”, “Banderas”
and “khokhols”. In his work, Bohdan Zholdak
depicts the destroyed towns and villages of
Donbas, militants’ shelling of women and
children, abandoned elderly people. The writer
leaves the ending of some parts of the film story
open for the reader to draw his own conclusions.
Thus, Bohdan Zholdak’s military prose “Ukry”
today can be called rightly one of the best
examples of modern Ukrainian literature about
the realities of the ATO. The collection of film
episodes is united by the chronotope of the
Russian-Ukrainian hybrid war. The main
characters have absorbed the best features, so it
is not surprising that the film story is compared
to “Aeneid” by Ivan Kotliarevskyi. And
Lieutenant Michurin, Zvirobii, Zhora, Gray and
Hunter – to the Cossacks-characterists who
defended Motherland with their courage, bravery
and ingenuity.
Heroic and tragic events of the Russian-
Ukrainian war in the pages of Yevhen
Polozhii’s novel “Ilovaisk”
In 2015, the world saw a novel in the short stories
“Ilovaisk” by Yevhen Polozhii. At the
Publishers’ Forum in Lviv, the book was
recognized as the best about the war, and its
author was awarded a cash prize. At the
International Literary Competition “Coronation
of the Word” the novel received a special award.
Work on the book lasted from October 2014 to
August 2015. Yevhen Polozhii based his novel
on the real events that took place on August 29-
30 near Ilovaisk. These are the stories of the
fighters who found themselves in the Ilovaisk
pocket. In the work we observe a masterful
combination of writing and journalistic work.
The novel consists of sixteen short stories that
tell about the courage and heroism of Ukrainian
soldiers. The author himself noted that “Ilovaisk”
is a completely artistic work, although to write it
Yevhen Polozhii met and talked with almost a
hundred members of the ATO, took seventy
interviews. The writer invents the names and call
signs of his characters, but everyone has a
prototype. It is noteworthy that the book was
published in two languages: Ukrainian and
Russian, because the war united Eastern and
Western Ukraine, and among the natives of
Donbas there were many volunteers who went to
defend their homeland from the enemy. The
author tried to convey the color, mood, emotions
of the fighters who managed to escape. “I did not
want to lose the energy of the narrators, so I used
this bilingual technique” (Lykhohliad, 2015).
While writing the novel, first of all Yevhen
Polozhii wanted to find out who was to blame for
the deaths of several hundred soldiers of the
Ukrainian army: “If they do not respect the dead,
they do not respect the living”. The writer used
the testimony of volunteer battalions “Donbas”,
“Dnipro-1”, “Kherson”, “Peacemaker”, “Dnipro-
2”, “Kryvbas” and others. All events are depicted
truthfully, without artistic interpretation. The
author’s undoubted merit is that he portrayed the
Russian-Ukrainian war through the eyes of an
ordinary soldier who found himself at the front
without proper knowledge, experience and
weapons. Yevhen Polozhii, unlike Bohdan
Zholdak, does not exaggerate the main
characters. If in the film story” Ukry” the fighters
defend the checkpoint, try not to give up
controlled positions, in the novel “Ilovaisk” the
main focus is on the ability to survive in the
terrible conditions in which the military found
itself due to a failed command. The writer clearly
draws the line between positive and negative
characters, their ideas and beliefs. We can
assume that this was influenced by the further life
of the participants of the Ilovaisk pocket, as many
of them were disappointed in the intention of the
Ukrainian army leadership to preserve the
territory of the country and its defenders. “We
still have a strange command – we pass
information for a week about the movement of
Russian troops, about the illegal crossing of the
state border by numerous columns of equipment,
about the possible encirclement – no reaction”
(Polozhii, 2015). Some of the volunteers
continue their service in other units. Prominent
representatives of military leaders in the novel
“Ilovaisk” are Colonel Hrachev, who died with
his soldiers, and Khomchak, who fled when the
first shelling began.
We can say that a writer Polozhii prevailed over
Polozhii as a journalist, so “Ilovaisk” is a work
of art with fictional words and details, not a
documentary. The author turns to the traditional
plot and depiction of the characters, using the
features of existentialism and naturalism. The
novel “Ilovaisk” is an example of classical war
literature, not popular non-fiction. According to
Yevhen Polozhii, the memories of the fighters
who survived the Ilovaisk pocket cannot be
regarded as historical evidence, as people were
under severe psychological stress, they had
hallucinations, and perceived certain events
differently. “Absolutely peaceful people got into
this war, and for many of them the experience of
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Ilovaisk, in fact a very cruel experience, was the
first combat experience” (Lykhohliad, 2015).
The writer pays considerable attention to the
image of Donbas. In his depiction he uses
contrast: “The villages of Donbas and
Dnipropetrovsk region were strikingly different.
In Donbas, you will not see anyone on the streets,
not even a chicken runs, let alone people or cows,
and even if residents show up, they try to hide in
the yard so as not to start conversations”
(Polozhii, 2015). For example, Bohdan Zholdak
in “Ukry” mostly presents the indigenous
population as separatists, disguised mercenaries
of the DPR and LPR, and tippers-off. They
openly despise Ukrainian soldiers and try to
destroy them. In his novel, Yevhen Polozhii
points to the pro-Russian sentiments of the
civilian population, their fascination with the
“Russian world”, but at the same time ordinary
people are helping our soldiers escape and
survive. A striking example is a doctor who
professes DPR policy, but puts professional duty
above, which is why he treats Serioha Kaban:
“As a doctor, I don’t care whose soldier you are
– Ukrainian, Russian or Chinese. To me, you are
firstly a patient whom I must cure. Human health
is the most important thing, and politics is useless
here” (Polozhii, 2015). The author also shows
that the worldview of many Ukrainians is
changing, but they are able to respond to other
people’s troubles. For example, Tymofiiovych
from the Crimea, a retired colonel who received
Russian citizenship, or Stiopa from DPR. They
are the ones who save Kaban and help him get to
the territory controlled by Ukraine. Of course, we
cannot justify them, but their actions deserve
attention, because the heroes risk their own lives.
Yevhen Polozhii also uses contrast. The ideal
family is only an illusion of family happiness,
and the fascination with the ideas of a new life
leads to the betrayal of loved ones. The writer
enters into the text a letter of confession of a boy
whose father survived near Ilovaisk. War, in
addition to death, well shows the essence of man,
his insides. So, a mother leaves the family for
ghostly ideas and remains to profess Gubarev’s
policy, while the father goes to the front to defend
the Motherland from enemies.
“A separatist now lives in my apartment with my
mother, my mother met him at a rally, he reminds
her of Gubarev with his crazy eyes, and of Putin
speaking in a predatory insidious manner. He
walks around our checkpoints in our car, he lies
on our couch and watches at our big plasma
Russia-24 and Lifenews – at least he has
something of his own. He yawns sweetly and
thinks of squeezing someone else tomorrow”
(Polozhii, 2015). In this short story Yevhen
Polozhii showed the war through the eyes of a
child. The feeling of patriotism is mixed with the
feeling of hopelessness of the situation. But the
worst thing is the betrayal of a loved human.
At first glance, the novel consists of individual
episodes of events near Ilovaisk, but there are
heroes whose fates run through the whole work.
These are Greg from Dnipro-1, Hrim and a nurse
Murka from Donbas. But, according to the
author, “the protagonist is the tragedy itself”
(Tolokolnikova, 2015). Yevhen Polozhii uses the
example of Greg’s family to show the clash of
two generations – older and younger. “My father
categorically did not believe in today’s people, in
their ability to create large-scale projects, to be
organized in a creative group, to make
constructive and consistent changes” (Polozhii,
2015). In his opinion, the current generation can
be considered lost, because it is accustomed to
the policy of consumption, so the events on the
Maidan and the first armed riots in the East he
did not take seriously. The old man had an
unshakable belief that no one could quarrel
between two fraternal peoples. In the image of
Greg’s father, the writer recreated the worldview
of the people of the Soviet epoch. At the same
time, he is one of the most tragic in the work,
because “the old man managed to change his
faith. He renounced the past, tore it up and threw
it in the trash, along with a ticket of a member of
the CPSU that was not needed but carefully
hidden in a drawer” (Polozhii, 2015). But he has
a future – a son-volunteer who defended the
Motherland. Yevhen Polozhii managed to
recreate skillfully the emotional experiences of
heroes who say goodbye to the past and have the
strength of will to accept a new future.
Many of the heroes of the novel are residents of
Donbas. That is how Slava Snizhok got his call
sign, because he was from the town of Snizhnyi.
In peacetime he worked as a teacher of Russian
language and literature. When the war broke out,
he left his wife and children and volunteered
because he decided to defend them from the
enemy. Snizhok became the first killed in the
Ilovaisk pocket.
In the pages of the novel, we meet Mark
Paslavskyi, nicknamed Franko, a US citizen with
Ukrainian roots. A successful financier, a man
who revolves around the highest circles, finds
himself in our war. He is not indifferent to the
fate of the country. “When we win, I will become
chairman of the National Bank of Ukraine and
break all the schemes of the oligarchs” (Polozhii,
2015). In our opinion, the writer in the image of
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Franko showed that patriotism does not depend
on a person’s place of residence or financial
situation. Marko Paslavskyi makes us think about
the question: why do volunteers go to the
Russian-Ukrainian war from abroad, while the
majority of Donbas residents are hostile?
In the novel “Ilovaisk” the author focuses the
reader’s attention on certain details. One of them
is the young age of the fighters. Yevhen Polozhii,
acquainting with the main characters, gives the
facts of their biographies. Among the fighters
were teachers, miners, workers, entrepreneurs,
judges who had families. But the main focus is
on eighteen- and twenty-year-old soldiers thrown
into the maelstrom of war without any support.
Entire battalions were destroyed. “Those
spiritualized, patriotic, sincere people are not
left” (Myronova, 2015).
In some short stories, Yevhen Polozhii uses the
principle of naturalism to recreate the horrors of
war: “Hrim covered his head with his hands, all
he felt was pieces of burnt human flesh falling on
him, which gave off a disgusting smell”
(Polozhii, 2015). The pictures of interrogations
and tortures of the Ukrainian military are not
indifferent: “He could not imagine how he sits in
the basement, and every day freaks come to him
and break bones with an iron pipe, shoot his
knees, pinch his fingers […] and force him to beg
for pardon” (Polozhii, 2015). But along with the
atrocities of Caucasian mercenaries, the writer
depicts young Russian soldiers who happened to
be at war. Those guys came to the state border to
study and only in Ilovaisk they realized that
everything is really happening. They were of no
value to the command of the Russian army, so
they were shot along with Ukrainian soldiers
during the assault.
Thus, in the novel “Ilovaisk”, Yevhen Polozhii
recreated a military operation that suffered the
greatest defeat during the entire period of the
Russian-Ukrainian war. The book is a testimony
and memoirs of soldiers who managed to survive
in the Ilovaisk pocket. The author showed the
courage and cowardice, feat and betrayal that
often occurs in war. Ukrainian fighters are not
exaggerated heroes, but ordinary people who
defend their Motherland. The novel “Ilovaisk”
reveals the truth of the war, shows the events of
August 29-30, 2014 through the eyes of its
participants, and therefore is perceived by critics
and readers quite ambiguously.
Conclusions
In recent years, many works on the realities of the
anti-terrorist operation and the war in Donbas
have appeared in the Ukrainian literary
discourse. They impress with their genre
diversity. Military prose has undergone certain
changes: from diary entries and notes on social
networks to novels, short stories, film stories,
poetry. Well-known writers, journalists, and the
military, whose artistic talent was revealed
during the events in the East, raised the topic of
war in their works. Problems covered by military
prose – life and death, heroism and betrayal,
friendship, mutual assistance, justice, family
relationships, violence, destruction. And the
most important, in our opinion, is the idea of the
struggle for peace, the moral responsibility of
human to society.
Bohdan Zholdak’s film story “Ukry” shows “a
noble, active, strong hero who defends freedom,
justice and universal ideals”. The author
managed to portray a whole cohort of such
desperate defenders of the Motherland. The
writer creates a living character with its positive
and negative sides, true language and emotions.
Joking with death, the heroes, sometimes
exaggerated, resort to courageous deeds, relying
only on their ingenuity and good luck, which
makes them similar to the heroes of Ivan
Kotliarevskyi’s “Aeneid”.
Another striking example of literature on the
Russian-Ukrainian hybrid war is Yevhen
Polozhii’s novel “Ilovaisk”, which is based on
the memoirs of soldiers who survived the
Ilovaisk pocket. According to the author himself,
this is a completely artistic work based on real
events. The writer turns to the traditional plot and
depiction of the characters, using the features of
existentialism and naturalism. After the
presentation, the novel was perceived by readers
and critics ambiguously, as it revealed the truth
of the war, the reasons for the greatest defeat of
the Ukrainian army during the entire period of
hostilities in the East. The novel “Ilovaisk” is
“the soldier’s truth” in its almost completely
authentic form.
Thus, Bohdan Zholdak’s film story “Ukry” and
Yevhen Polozhii’s novel “Ilovaisk” are united by
the artists’ convictions in the victory of the
Ukrainian army, as the main characters of
military prose have their prototypes. In the works
of modern Ukrainian literature there is a deep
rethinking of the war, which poses a potential
threat not only to the individual country and its
inhabitants, but to humanity in general. The
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authors affirm the idea of peace as the highest
human value.
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