DOCUMENTING WAR REALITY IN WOMAN’S EGO-NARRATIVE: A COMPARATIVE ASPECT (ASTRID LINDGREN AND LIUBOV DOLUK)

Abstract

The publication presents a comprehensive analysis of war narratives and the poetics of women’s diary discourse as a significant component of military ego-literature (based on the notes of Astrid Lindgren and Liubov Dolyk). The study examines the diary entries of two civilian female authors, reflecting the boundary experience of living through World War II and the contemporary Russian-Ukrainian War. It explores the transformation of the texts' genre structure, capturing both traditional and innovative poetical elements. The author argues that the analyzed ego-documents adhere to classical genre canons, characterized by chronological linearity, daily dating, the effect of the present tense, first-person narration, as well as a high degree of authenticity, sincerity, and confessional nature. At the same time, individual deviations from the classical genre model are identified: Lindgren actively incorporates the accounts (narratives) of other individuals into the structure of her storytelling, while the Ukrainian author, Dolyk, employs retrospective excursions. War in the diaries of both diarists is presented not merely as aggression or an external danger, but becomes a full-fledged living space; its depiction bridges the macro-level of official news chronicles with the micro-level of private family history. The conclusions emphasize that the diaries of A. Lindgren and L. Dolyk serve as significant sources and essential ego-documents that organically integrate the subjective experiences of the individual (narrator) into the nationwide wartime dimension.