Reception of the Soviet-Finnish War in the novel “They came again” by Ivan Loboda

Abstract

Svitlana Lushchii

Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Ukraine

 «RECEPTION OF THE SOVIET-FINNISH WAR IN I. LOBODA’S NOVEL «THEY CAME AGAIN»

Diaspora writers deeply comprehended the military history of the Ukrainian people. This is primarily evidenced by the works of I. Bahrianyi, V. Bender, Y. Buriakivets, D. Humenna, O. Izarsky, I. Kachurovskyi, O. Kobets, I. Kostetskyi, O. Luhovyi, S. Liubomyrskyi, U. Samchuk, and others. The article explores the reception of the Soviet-Finnish war in I. Loboda’s novel «They Came Again».

Ukrainian forces also fought on the side of freedom-loving Finns. The object of the study is the novel about the «Winter War» by I. Lobodа.  The purpose of the article  is to find out the peculiarities of the reception of the Soviet-Finnish war in I. Loboda’s novel «They Came Again».

This work has been undeservedly overlooked by researchers, both in the diaspora and on the mainland. One of the important tasks of is to bring the novel back into the history of twentieth-century national literature. This aspect partly determines the novelty of the study. To achieve this goal, contextual analysis, descriptive, historical and literary methods were used. The novelist examines the Soviet-Finnish war from different perspectives: historical, psychological, social, and existential. I. Loboda convincingly refuted a number of Soviet myths related to the war. That is why the novel «They Came Again» is especially relevant today. The novelist highlights the aggressive policy of the Soviet Union. Today, in times of rashism attack, it is extremely important to analyze this work carefully, because it can provide answers to many questions.

1. I. Loboda’s novel «They Came Again» will be of interest not only to literary scholars but also to historians. In this article, I turn to contemporary historical research on the Soviet-Finnish war. It is historians who speak of the telling parallels between the current Russian-Ukrainian war and the «Winter War» of 1939-

In the materials about the war published in the journal Soviet Literary Studies, I trace specifically the Soviet interpretation of this event. It was I. Loboda’s novel «They Came Again» (1953) that became a kind of fictional history of the Soviet-Finnish war.

Keywords: diaspora, Soviet-Finnish war, «The Winter War», the journal «Soviet Literary Studies», novel, reception of war, Soviet myths, Ukraine, Finland.