"Us" versus "Them": the Image of Self and Other in the Ukrainian Fiction and Non-fiction Literature about the Ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War

Abstract

The article is devoted to the depiction of the "self" and "other" images in fiction and non-fiction literature about the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war. The sources chosen for the study consist of coverages by Ukrainian journalists and the novel "Internat" by Serhiy Zhadan. The focus has been placed on the analysis of the discursive strategies and linguistic realizations the authors had chosen to draw a line between "us" and "them". In both types of texts, "friends" and "enemies" are not divided by blood relations or language issues, but by ideological differences. Therefore, the article introduces a discussion about the portrayal of "self" and "other" as a dichotomy in different types of texts. In our future research, we intend to concentrate on the comparison of the aforementioned dichotomy in other discourses and genres (films, social media texts, news, interviews, and legislative texts). The comparison of these depictions in different cultures and historical era could also be fruitful for further investigations.