War, Memory, and Narrative: Literary Representations of Geopolitical Trauma

Abstract

This paper examines how contemporary literature represents geopolitical trauma through the lens of memory and narrative reconstruction, focusing on two defining conflicts of the 2020s: Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine (2022–present) and Israel's large-scale military operation in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack (2023–present). Drawing on trauma theory and memory studies, the analysis explores how writers from both contexts articulate pre-war anticipation, wartime devastation, and post-war memory reconstruction across multiple phases. Key texts—including Serhii Zhadan's Orphanage (2017), Sofia Andrukhovych's Amadoka (2020), Tamara Duda's Daughter (2019) , and emerging Gaza war diaries and poetry—reveal literature's dual function as witness and therapeutic medium amid extensive violence. The paper argues that these narratives not only document individual and collective trauma but also resist erasure, challenge dominant geopolitical discourses, and transmit intergenerational memory in ways that official histories cannot fully capture. Ultimately, literary representation becomes an act of survival, preserving humanity amid systematic dehumanization and widespread destruction.