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Paper short abstract

This paper analyzes the recontextualization of Ukrainian folkloric and symbolic landscapes during the Russo-Ukrainian war, focusing on their role in cultural resilience, identity reinforcement, and nation-building through the cases of Ukrainian demonology and landscape mythologies.

Paper long abstract

The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine has intensified the cultural significance of landscape-related symbols rooted in folkloric and mythological traditions.

One prominent example is the reactivation of the mavka image. In Ukrainian demonology, mavkas are liminal figures associated with water and early summer rituals, traditionally luring men to their deaths. During the first months of the invasion, this image was reframed in narratives and memes where mavkas led Russian soldiers into swamps. The motif also entered activism: a women’s initiative in the occupied territories adopted the name “Angry Mavkas” (Zli Mavky), employing folklore as symbolic registers of defiance and resistance against invasion and occupation.

A second case concerns the symbolic revival of the Great Meadow (Velykyi Luh) after the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in July 2023. The drainage of the reservoir revealed lands submerged since the 1950s and historically linked to Cossack culture. Their resurfacing was framed as the return of the “sacred lands of the Cossacks,” activating narratives of continuity, resilience, and democratic tradition. This reinterpretation also served as a compensatory mechanism in response to ecological devastation, reaffirming national identity through landscape mythologies.

Finally, the Ukrainian Crystalline Shield, an ancient geological formation, has acquired renewed metaphorical value. Popular interpretations present it as a “charging device” sustaining the civilizational energy of the population. While scientifically ungrounded, this image provides a symbolic language of endurance and deep historical rootedness.

Reimagined through folkloric frameworks, these symbols function as mechanisms of cultural resilience, identity reinforcement, and collective meaning-making under conditions of war.