Two Wars for One Life: Verbalization of Experience during the War

Abstract

This article examines the oral recollections of Leonida Stanislavivna Panchyk, born in 1939 in Makariv district, Kyiv region, where she has lived all her life. The oral recollections were recorded from February 26 to March 5, 2022, during the beginning of the active phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war. The uniqueness and special value of the presented records lies in the fact that they demonstrate the living life of the Ukrainian narrative tradition. The recorded narrative is a direct reaction to the war. The analysed material and the study of the living situation gave grounds to distinguish the following three groups of reasons that caused the emergence of a memory: characters, events, place. The associative logical sequence of plots in memories is described. All the stories are a child’s memories and primarily describe events that are important to the child. Panchyk’s memories are sustained in one ideological, thematic and genre direction, they are not diluted by other themes or genres.