Features of Modern Ukrainian Military Prose (on the example of Bohdan Zholdak’s film story “Ukry” and Yevhen Polozhii’s novel “Ilovaisk”)

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 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.