LITERARY GEOGRAPHY OF WAR: IMAGES OF UKRAINIAN CITIES IN PROSE ABOUT THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR

Abstract

The article examines the phenomenon of the literary geography of the Russian-Ukrainian war through the prism of images of Ukrainian cities in contemporary prose. The theoretical impetus for the study is provided by Oksana Zabuzhko’s publicistic essay “A Letter about Europe, War, and Escape” (2023), in which geographical names function as markers of collective memory, historical experience, and the value foundations of European civilization. The article is based on the premise that in wartime a city ceases to be merely a physical or administrative space and is transformed into a complex symbolic construct endowed with existential, mythological, and cultural meanings. Drawing on novels and documentary-fictional texts by Ukrainian authors, the study analyzes representations of key wartime toposes – Donetsk, Ilovaisk, Kyiv, Mariupol, and others – which in twenty-first-century literature emerge as spaces of resistance, trauma, and memory. The material for the study consisted of the following works: Dotia (2019) by Tamara Horikha Zernia; Dance of Death. Diary of a Volunteer of the “Donbas” Battalion (2019) and Fugue “119” in the Key of Captivity (2021) by Ihor Mykhailyshyn; The War Timer. The Long Curfew (2023) by Andrii Kokotiukha; A Journey to the Afterlife. Mariupol (2022) by Yevhen Shyshatskyi. Particular attention is paid to two dominant narrative models: the gradual destruction of the city as a result of hostilities and the depiction of the courage of its defenders and residents. It is demonstrated that the image of the city in these texts is formed through the interaction of physical, social, and cultural spaces, as well as through personal memories, documentary testimonies, and artistic myth-making. The article concludes that contemporary Ukrainian prose constructs a coherent literary map of war in which cities function as sites of memory and symbols of the European frontier. This literary geography not only records the experience of the Russian-Ukrainian confrontation but also shapes a artistic history of war oriented toward the future.