Writing on the Edge: Memory about the Russo-Ukrainian War in Ukrainian Women's Dramaturgy

• In Event: Remembering the Present: Memorialization of Russo-Ukrainian War in Memorials, Museums, Literature and Rituals I

Abstract

The study of contemporary Ukrainian dramaturgy catalyzed by the full-scale Russia’s war against Ukraine actualizes the importance of the memory about this war. Female dramaturgy forms a new pantheon of Ukrainian heroines while developing a narrative about the Russo-Ukrainian war. The expansion of the militarized contexts of the new Ukrainian dramaturgy occurs through the production of military narratives that create a new language of commemoration. The inversion of gender roles in military realities enables the following images: female combatants in Anna Bahriana’s Prynts i Zhinka [The Prince and the Woman] and Neda Nezhdana’s Zakryte nebo [The Closed Sky]; volunteers in Olha Annenko’s Liuby-mene-ne-kyn [Love-Me-Not-Leave-Me]; women working on demining in Yulia Hudozhnyk’s Oberezhno, mina [Beware of Mines]; collecting intelligence in the occupied territories in Oksana Hrytsenko’s Molochainyk [Spurges] and in Tetiana Kytsenko’s Baba Toma [Grandma Toma], rescuing the wounded in Kateryna Penkova’s Marafon “rosiiska ruletka” [The Marathon “Russian Roulette”] and Inna Honcharova’s Trubach [The Trumpeter] etc. Reflecting on the massive corpus of literary works about the war created by Ukrainian women playwrights in 2022 - 2023, we will try to answer the question: How do the they contribute to the creation of a collective memory about the Russo-Ukrainian war?

Author

• Oleksandra G. Shtepenko, Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (Ukraine)