A symbolic farewell to the “russian world” in the virtual playwright's anthology “Without them”

Abstract

The object of analysis in this article is the playwright’s anthology Without Them, published in the public domain on the UKRDRAMACHUB resource in late 2022 — early 2023: the authors of the playwrights’ texts contained in it are the co-founders of the Dramaturgs’ Theatre, which today actively positions itself as a pro-Ukrainian creative theatre and playwrights’ center. The purpose of the article is to explore how playwrights who, even after 2014, collaborated with Russian theater and drama projects, against the backdrop of full-scale Russian aggression, define their Ukrainian self-identification and critically rethink their experience of contact with Russians. For this purpose, the playwrights use dramatic means to create a mental picture of space, studied by the method of conceptual analysis: in this space, Russians are assigned a place on the deep periphery of the civilized world. To do this, the playwrights use a specific matrix of cultural codes, record numerous crimes committed by Russians against Ukrainians both in the first year of full-scale aggression and in historical retrospect, and demonstrate their own deliberate, publicly emphasized renunciation of the “Russian world.” The scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that the anthology-almanac Without Them as a complete text is studied for the first time.

The analysis of this corpus of texts proves that demonstrative ‘anti-Russianness’, called to live by external circumstances and social conjuncture, does not always automatically develop into ‘Ukrainianness’, since the authors themselves are fluent in the Russian cultural field and know much less about the similar Ukrainian one. Nevertheless, the attempt of this creative center to finally accept Ukrainian civic self-identification and break with the idea of a common cultural space with Russians should be welcomed, and we expect the theater to overcome contextual gaps with Ukrainian culture as quickly as possible.