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« 2023. # 5 (173)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2023. № 5 (173), 1271—1283

UDK [398.7:82-94](=161.2):355.4(470-651.1:477)”2022″

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2023.05.1271

WHEN TRADITION MATTERS: PROPHETIC DREAMS ABOUT THE RUSSIAN WAR AGAINST UKRAINE IN THE CONTEXT OF UKRANIAN FOLK CULTURE

KUZMENKO Oksana

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0512-6388
  • Doctor of Science in Philology
  • (Ph.D. in Folklore Studies), Senior Scholar,
  • Leading Research Associate
  • of Department of Social Anthropology
  • The Ethnology Institute of the
  • National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts:е-mail: kuzmenko.oksana@gmail.com

Abstract. The article is based on a paper presented at the 16th International Congress of the Society for Ethnology and Folklore (16th SIEF 2023).

Autobiographical narratives about the current war, including motifs of prophetic dreams, nightmares, or full-oniric texts, have been elements of everyday communication since the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The article’s purpose is to trace the genesis of the formation of oral dream narratives about the Russian-Ukrainian war, as well as pragmatics, narrative syntax, and folklore semantics. The object of the study is the Ukrainian oral narrative tradition. The subject is the traditionality and ways of narrating onyric texts «before the war» that are included in the modern discursive process as a communicative event. The main task is to study the plots and classify the symbolic images of onyric narratives with the motif of a «prophetic» dream, the mechanism of integrating a «prophetic» dream into an individual life story.

The source material of the article is field material — onyric texts originating from oral personal narratives, audio recordings of which were made by the author between March 2022 and September 2023, as well as printed and archival texts recorded as part of oral history research projects.

The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is based on the semantic-structural, narrative analysis of the verbal text of the dream. The methods of participant observation, autoethnography, and conceptual analysis are auxiliary.

In conclusion, the author argues that the verbalization of dream interpretation texts has proven to be a necessary communicative practice for overcoming trauma in uncertain times. Dreams of reclaiming the «small homeland» and thoughts of Victory over the enemy as a mythical «breakthrough» prevail. Oral autobiographical narratives with episodes of significant dreams included, the prognostic effect of which is not always clear, are more an original expression of subconscious attitudes towards the war, and a way to structure the present and to some extent control the uncertain future.

Keywords: modern folklore culture, life story, tradition, text, narrative, oneiric narrative, motif of a «prophetic» dream, symbolism, Russian-Ukrainian war.

Received 11.10.2023

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