by Emily Markham
The Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic was delighted to host the online event “Fantasy in the Midst of War: Perspectives from Ukraine” with our academic colleagues at the Centre for Fantasy Literature Studies, Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, who opened a discussion about the intersection between fantasy and conflict. The presentations covered some of the most well-respected fantasy writers, the history of folk traditions and mythologies, and how fantastic motifs appear in digital media responding to contemporary conflict. Working under constantly changing circumstances, their research takes place in the increasingly online landscape of modern warfare where battle footage is often dissected under the lens of popular culture.
Yevheniia Kanchura opened with her paper “The War Theme in Fantasy Literature: Tradition and Transformation” examining the postmodern shift in fantasy literature, which redirects the good/evil dichotomy into discussions about the ethical dilemma of war. Where high fantasy may traditionally feature the heroic epic, postmodern fantasy deconstructs the grand narratives and binary thinking that positions war as necessary. The final battle is no longer sacred, prophecies become coercive narratives, and alternative solutions are sought in the defence against attacks to end the world.
After setting the foundations for the changes in the representation of war in fantasy, Alexandra (Oleksandra) Filonenko focussed on how social media has been employed in Tolkienian discourses of war in “‘You Shall Not Pass!’: Tolkienian (Social) Media” Discourse of the Russian-Ukrainian War, an Overview. Beginning with a Cold War era map of Europe as Middle-earth, a new language of war has evolved around depictions of Ukraine as the Shire and Orcs as Russian occupiers. The huge number of examples of social media memes in her presentation only scratched the surface and they ranged from anonymous accounts to the Ukrainian Minister of Defence. The phenomena of the Tolkien fandom’s rewriting of The Lord of the Rings in the context of the current war is so prolific that it has garnered attention from Western media. Fast-moving and constantly evolving, this research sits between the study of fantastic in new media and the impact of social media on conflict, where research methods are still developing on how to document these fleeting cultural moments.
Tetiana Riazantseva’s “‘We Keep Holding On to Life…’: Elements of Magical Thinking and Folklore Imagery in Inna Honchar and Yurko Kostyshyn’s Photopoetic Project ‘#4.5.0’ (2023)” expanded these themes in the consideration of the relationship between photopoetry and the fantastic. A visual-verbal form, photopoetry is the poetic response to a photograph or the photographic response to poetry. Technical art and literature combine to interpret the complexity before the lens or beneath the pen. In this case, the visual and emotional realities of the war are interpreted through folklore tradition and the optimism of magical thinking. This study of photopoetry through the fantastic lens to understand contemporary conflict brings an interdisciplinary approach that will be of interest to fantasy and conflict scholars alike.
Returning to the fantastic imagination, Ganna Kolesny’s “The Womanly Face of War: Mythological Imagery in Artistic Representations of Ukraine on Social Media” considered feminised mythology as an ideological weapon. The mythologised Ukrainian woman represents collective memory and traditional values. In images shared widely on social media, Ukraine is conceptualised as a suffering mother through iconography of the Virgin Mary. This is juxtaposed against images of war, often taking a mythological form like Morana, the goddess of death and rebirth. Gendered assumptions unite with the material reality of war, where goddesses hold both weapon and baby, to bring ideological weaponry into online spaces.
Olena Tykhomyrova finished the presentations with “The Fairy Librarian: Combining War and Fantasy in Fiction” where she read from and discussed her short story weaving fantasy with the Ukraine-Russia war. The story was written while teaching creative writing students about sources of inspiration. It asks questions about whether writing about war through the lens of the fantastic is naive wishful thinking or perhaps a form of escapism. The answers are unclear, but the diversity of topics covered in the presentations suggest another interpretation – fantasy can be a way to articulate difficult topics through familiar motifs, while also generating discourses and imagery that become rallying points, sources of hope or even ideological tools.
As a PhD researcher at the Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic studying war and fantasy, I was so interested to hear these fascinating presentations. What stood out to me was the incredible range of forms discussed, from high fantasy novels and short stories to digital media and photopoetry. Watching the presentations together highlighted their interconnectedness – legend and mythology inform fantasy literature which inspires fan culture and then develops into online memes that take inspiration from mythology and so on. I was struck by the research methods surrounding online discourses and social media. Digital media is always evolving and, although it is accessible for now, we cannot rely on its permanence. This is why research like this is so important to capture these digital landscapes, so we can have a fuller picture of the everyday responses to current conflicts and a better understanding of the huge diversity of ways to express complex experiences.