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Paper short abstract

A comparative study of Ukrainian and Lithuanian interwar and partisan songs reveals how the onset of war is voiced through young soldiers’ readiness for fighting and their farewells to loved ones. Both are framed by natural and landscape motifs that reflect parallel folkloric traditions.

Paper long abstract

Conducting my thesis research “The Concept of War in Lithuanian and Ukrainian Military Songs (19th–21st Centuries),” I analyse and compare the “war” concept in Ukrainian and Lithuanian folk military songs. The historical and cultural parallels of both nations’ struggles for liberation against Russian rule provide strong grounds for examining folk songs and folklorized authorial works performed during these conflicts.

The research focuses on the semantic analysis of the “war” concept during periods when these communities defended their national identity and statehood while sharing similar experiences of resistance. In particular, attention is paid to the interwar period of the early twentieth century: the era of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen (1914–1918) and the Lithuanian Wars of Independence (1918–1920). The analysis also includes partisan songs of the post-war period, represented by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (1942–1960) and the Lithuanian Partisan War (1944–1953).

To capture the existential crisis expressed through folklore, I emphasize a chronological structure of war in three stages: the onset, the course of war, and its conclusion. The first stage primarily reveals the attitude and readiness of young people to become soldiers, as well as their emotional experiences of parting with their families.

The semantic core of the transition from peaceful life to wartime encompasses motifs of readiness for a militant future and farewell to a past existence. This transformation is symbolized in both traditions by lexemes of nature, including natural phenomena, animal, and plant imagery. Furthermore, the landscape itself acquires symbolic meaning, rationalizing the necessity of struggle.