The Image of Home as a Marker of Safety/Danger in Contemporary Literature for Children and Youth.

Abstract

This article analyses the artistic representation of the image of home as a marker of safety/danger in contemporary Ukrainian literature for children and youth. The artistic features of the image of home as a building, locus, spatial image, and an image of the sacred – connected to the spiritual and moral world, as well as the feelings and experiences of the main characters – are highlighted. Additionally, home is portrayed as a national-symbolic image, especially in works and children’s books about war and the struggle against the enemy. The meanings embedded by the authors in the images of a destroyed, looted, and abandoned home and a new home, which provides temporary shelter or should become a new home for emigrants, are examined. The verbal and visual components of books for children are interpreted with an emphasis on how the main characters perceive their home. It is noted that the image of one’s own home has several meanings: a person’s material well-being in life; a place that characterises a person’s self-identification in the world, his or her worldview; and a sense of protection from external factors of influence. For a child, home is usually associated with a carefree childhood in a loving family, their personal space filled with favourite toys, and safety. It has been proven that the concept of “home” takes on different meanings in war stories and novellas. The looted house in Volodymyr Rutkivskyi’s novella “Poterchata” symbolises the young protagonist Volodko’s lost childhood. The image of the home, in particular the basement of the building, is first a marker of safety and unity of people, and then a danger for the girl, Vira, and her family in Kateryna Yehorushkina’s story. The image of the destroyed home in Oleksandr Mykhed’s fairy tale represents the shattered universe of one family, which personifies the lives of millions of Ukrainians ruined by the war and russian aggression. Whereas, the characters, such as the Cat, the Rooster, and the Cupboard serve as images and symbols of the resilience of the Ukrainian people that the whole world saw in the photos of Borodianka near Kyiv, destroyed by russian shelling. The image of the home takes on a sacred meaning in Nadiika Herbish’s story “The Apples of War”. The characters lose their native home and seek refuge in a new one, turning a stranger’s or a new, other home into their own by creating comfort and spiritual space for their family. The image of the home is closely tied to the issue of identity since the house embodies the lost integrity of perception of the world and one’s place in it due to emigration.