Historical fact and literature for children (Based on prose by modern writers: O. Zakharchenko’s novel «Nativity Scene», G. Kirpa’s novel «My Dad Became a Star», H. Lukaschuk’s «Tales of the Maidan» and R. Romanishin and A. Lesiva's «War That Changed Rondo», novel-three-part «Return from the war» N. Nagornaya, etc.)

Abstract

The article considers works for children about the Revolution of Dignity and the war in eastern Ukraine. The author analyzed the most famous of them in the context of other publications about the Maidan and ATO-OOS, revealed their features and a special perspective of coverage of the topic "children during the revolution-war." The researcher also observed how writers present a historical fact in their works, trying to tell in an accessible language about the turning points of historical events, revealed the literary-critical discourse around such books. Particular attention in the material is paid to the socialization of children in wartime, their character and psychology, and rapid growth, which its author illustrates with examples of the Ukrainian present. The researcher proposes to consider all the works about the Revolution of Dignity and the armed confrontation in Donbass in two planes – realistic and fantastic. The characteristic features of the first are the child in the center of the story, and then all the events are presented through its prism of worldview and understanding. Among the advantages of such works – a dynamic, non-linear plot, diverse characters, interesting and rapid development of the plot. Instead, the specifics of the second, unreal plane, artistic fiction, fairy tale prevails and dominates the real world, the authors in the texts mostly use symbols, archetypes and hidden allegorical meanings. The authors focus on the struggle between good and evil, the opposition of positive and negative characters. Historical, dramatic events are not clearly mentioned here, but are told metaphorically. According to the authors of modern literatu re for children about the war, in such two ways it is most effective to convey a historical fact to a special recipient – the child reader and the child listener. But the main postulate of all works is the idea that war is an absolute evil from which Ukrainians and children among them suffer.