Przeciwstawność wojny i pokoju w listach Łesi Ukrainki
The Opposition of War and Peace in Lesya Ukrainka’s Letters

Author(s): Svitlana Bogdan
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: The article presents a way of using two opposing words – war and peace – in LesyaUkrainka’s letters. What is worth noting is the fact that so far there has been no linguistic research concerning this issue. It has been observed that lexemes war and peace influence the shaping of the inner world of the author of the letters. The analysed epistolary texts contain binary oppositions (including the war / peace pair), which first and foremost mirror the values held by the author, expressed in moral maxims and aphorisms.The nominative form of the word war is verbalised primarily by means of such lexemes as war, army, military, martial. What is worth noting is the personal engagement of the author in the real descriptions of the days during the war, as well as the usage of aphorisms and reflections on the subject of the war. In the letters, the stereotypical phrase go to war recurs in its figurative meaning (for instance, war as an illness). Lesya Ukrainka uses numerous words deriving from the word peace: they calmed down, she/he made peace, to reconcile, it is (not) beseeming, peacefulness, peaceful, peacefully, faithful, Myrophora. Frequently, the lexeme agree appears with the following meaning: to reach an agreement, to agree with other people’s opinion. Studying the binary pair of war – peace confirms the multidimensionality and universality of these phenomena, and the words and phrases that describe them.

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