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Meme Like a Partisan Song. Heroic Narratives in War Folklore in Past and Present

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2022

Abstract

As stated by Raoul Girardet, political myth combines in itself a clarifying function in relation to the present phenomena and a mobilizing role. Its power of influence and strenght is manifested with the greatest urgency during extreme historical events.

In connection with the war in Ukraine, there is often pointed to the seemingly unprecedented vernacularization of its public image as the event, which reaches the global public through social networking sites and the genres related to them: including very trivial ones. In fact, these manifestations are just another reincarnation of war folklore and often reproduce culturally rooted topos and archetypes that could be also find in folklore manifestations associated with wars in past.

The paper will focus on the analysis of heroic narratives reproduced in internet culture in connection with the theme of war. We will try to place it in the wider diachronic context of war folklore. We will attempt to reflect these motives through the lens of political myth and thus examine the functions of war folklore and its forms yesterday and today.