CZYJ — SWÓJ? CZYJ — OBCY? SWOI, OBCY I WROGOWIE W FILMOWYCH NARRACJACH O WOJNIE UKRAIŃSKO-ROSYJSKIEJ PRZED 24 LUTEGO 2022 R.
WHOSE: OURS? STRANGERS? OURS, STRANGERS AND ENEMIES IN FILM NARRATIVES ON THE UKRAINE-RUSSIAN WAR BEFORE 24 FEBRUARY 2022

Summary/Abstract: The author attempts to analyse the ways of constructing the boundaries of sameness and otherness in feature films about the 2014–2021 Russian-Ukrainian conflict produced in Ukraine, Russia and the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic, treated here as cultural texts constituting propaganda. In the course of the analysis, it turned out that the dichotomy of sameness and otherness can also only be used partially in the conditions of war, because in Ukrainian cinema we find clear examples of the inhabitants of Donbas, even separatists, being portrayed in less clear-cut categories. The application of Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of the “stranger” located between “friend” and “enemy” demonstrated its explanatory power here. The lack of symmetrically assigned roles of friend and enemy in the productions of specific countries was also captured, resulting from the fact that the main enemy shown in Ukrainian productions — Russia — is practically absent from Russian and Luhansk People’s Republic films as a party to the conflict in Donbas (this matter is portrayed differently in movies on the annexation of Crimea).

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