Ecological Catastrophe in the Dystopia Novels of Tanya Malyarchuk and Serhiy Oksenyk.

Abstract

The article examines the theme of ecological disaster as a central motif in Ukrainian prose for children and youth using the example of dystopian works by Tanya Malyarchuk (MOX NOX) and Serhiy Oksenyk (trilogy Through the Forest. By the Sky, by the Water). It analyzes how the scenarios of ecological apocalypse are artistically represented in these works, and shows the models of the heroes’ behavior. The ecological disaster in these novels appears not as the background, but as the artistic and semantic center, revealing cultural, social and ethical crises of modern times. In the novel MOX NOX, through the images of an ideal (dreamy) and destroyed natural world, the author demonstrates the contrast between harmony and the consequences of anthropocentric invasion. The heroine Teresa dreams of ecological restoration and constructive interaction between people and nature, focusing on biodiversity and the power of nature to self-regenerate. In Serhiy Oksenyk’s trilogy, the destroyed world after the ecological disaster is a territory of struggle between a consumerist approach to nature and efforts to save the remnants of life. The child heroes, in particular Lysy, act as carriers of ecological awareness, which forms a model of “ecological uprising” – a protest against destructive systems and a desire to restore the natural balance. As the analysis shows, the dystopian genre allows authors to vividly depict the consequences of ecological disasters and social crises. At the same time, due to their emotional resonance, such works form ecological thinking, a responsible attitude towards the nature, environmentally conscious and proactive behavior in young readers, and strengthen the understanding of the connection between a person’s moral choice and a state of the environment. The article uses methods of literary analysis and typological comparison, tools of the ecocritical approach, which allowed us to identify key markers of ecological disaster in dystopian novels. This is a destroyed civilization, loss of biodiversity, resource scarcity, climate change, technological ruins, and lost ecological memory.