"People Shouldn't Believe in War": The Image of an "Impossible War" in Stories About the 2022 Full-Scale Invasion

In interviews recorded in the first months of 2022, narrators almost always begin their stories by mentioning their disbelief in the war. Initial reactions ("I couldn't even imagine it," "I couldn't believe it," "I couldn't even imagine it in my worst nightmare"…) were not merely spontaneous emotional outbursts but served as a narrative device, marking the event as one that irrevocably changes both the narrator and society as a whole—and thus must be firmly embedded in the collective memory. Moreover, the articulation of the war as "impossible" does not stem from a single source but is shaped by several interrelated factors that structure contemporary Ukrainian experience.

During this Urban Seminar, Nadiia Pastukh will analyze how disbelief functions in early war narratives, how it is articulated, what purposes it serves, and how it draws on existing cultural repertoires to describe extreme events. In particular, the image of the “impossible war” will emerge not only as a result of the empirical, emotional, and discursive forces that fuel this formulaic expression, but first and foremost as a culturally and narratively constructed strategy designed to signal the moral illegitimacy of Russia's war against Ukraine.

Urban Seminar will be held in a workshop format. Researchers are invited to discuss scholarly projects, research at various stages of development, and completed research that is being prepared for publication.

Participation in the Urban Seminar requires preliminary reading and discussion of the researcher's text. If you would like to join the Seminar, please email Anastasiia Fabirovska (a.fabirovska@lvivcenter.org), and we will send you the materials in advance.