Representation of the emotional experience of war in the network poetry of Ukrainian defenders

Abstract

The subject of analysis in this article is the verbalization of the emotional experience of war in the poetry of Ukrainian military authors, created during the period of full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation. The relevance of the study lies in the uniqueness of the phenomenon — poetry written by participants of combat — that includes literary expression, historical testimony, therapeutic practice, and serves as a tool of communication with society. This poetry reflects extreme human experiences and brings the emotional perception of war into the public space. The purpose of the article is to comprehend the functioning of poetic language as a means of public representation, experience, and communication of the emotional dimension of war. The methodological foundation is based on literary and socio-communicative approaches, including qualitative and quantitative content analysis, as well as discourse and interpretive analysis. The empirical basis consists of more than 250 original poetic texts published by Ukrainian soldiers on the social network Facebook.

The study identified emotional accents in the poems: longing for home and peaceful life, anger and hatred toward the enemy, fear, anxiety, grief, exhaustion, faith, hope, and love. It demonstrates that in the poetic works of combatants, emotions become a resource for survival, connection, and action. The analysis reveals how metaphors, archetypal imagery, and emotionally charged language are used by poets to convey the traumatic experience of war, document the state of constant threat, and express notions of death and heroism. Special attention is paid to the phenomenon of grief as a collective trauma, represented not only through the loss of comrades, but also through the existential rupture between pre-war and present-day existence. The study also traces how poetry becomes a form of preserving optimism — particularly through poetic images of faith in victory and love as a tactile and simultaneously sacred force. The practical value of the research lies in revealing new opportunities for interpreting contemporary Ukrainian poetic works. The findings offer deeper insight into the role of poetry in the processes of social cohesion, and artistic comprehension of the war experience. They may be applied in literary studies, social communication, cultural anthropology, psychology, educational programs in the humanities, as well as in military psychological rehabilitation projects and cultural diplomacy.