Memory and Multimodal Subjectivity in You Don’t Know What War Is

Abstract

The conflict in Ukraine has been a complex and deeply troubling chapter in contemporary geopolitics. Originating in 2014, the tensions escalated on 24 February 2022 when Russia annexed Crimea, leading to a protracted and multifaceted conflict in Eastern Ukraine. The war, being the biggest attack on a European country since World War II, has resulted in significant human suffering, displacement, and trauma. The memory of such war has been vividly featured in You Don’t Know What War Is: The Diary of a Young Girl from Ukraine (2022) by Yeva Skalietska. A twelve-year-old girl, Skalietska documents her live experiences that have shattered her life and family. The book employs multimodal features, i.e., text and images to represent her traumatic memory and her subjectivity. The paper will utilize principles of trauma theory to analyse her traumatic experiences. It will also use (1) perceptual, (2) structural and (3) ideological analytical tools proposed by Serafini (2010) to decode the multimodal subjectivity embedded in the text, and thus adding value to scholarship on trauma and war narratives.