DefinePK

Abstract

The present study attempts to look into the sufferings, and trauma of people living in Ukraine, a conflict zone, a country in Eastern Europe. Ukraine is one of the invaded lands and a center point of conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Russia started sending troops near its Ukraine border saying it to be for "training exercises" and, it launched an invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian civilians had become the direct target of all the violence caused by the invaders. Despite the serious nature of the traumatic experiences of the people living in Ukraine, and as depicted in the literature produced therein, little scholarly attention has been given to it to voice out these accounts, which are necessary for claiming the truthful depiction of the Ukraine. This article uses Social Realism, modern art movements embodied in the work of Ben Shaw and Kai. T. Erikson’s Collective Trauma as the theoretical framework along the thoughts of Clausewitz to analyze the selected Ukrainian literary text titled The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan. Much of the novel describes Pasha and his nephew's, journey through the post-apocalyptic ruined landscape, with shells still falling, seeking shelter in various ruined buildings and with different groups of desperate, displaced, citizens and their dealings with troops on all sides and this war does not care that Pasha just wanted to lead a normal, unremarkable life. The investigation concludes that fictional narratives, through traumatic experiences, bring a compelling tale of eternal suffering, establishing the fact that it is not the individual that must bear the moral responsibility; rather, it should be the collective.