Issue 3 (64)
| “HERE WAS RUSSIAN VANYA”: HUMOR, IRONY AND MILITARY HIERARCHY IN THE MEMORIES OF LOCAL WARS VETERANS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 2019 | Number | 3(64) |
| Pages | 116-125 | Type | scientific article |
| UDC | 94(470)“19” | BBK | 63.3 |
| Authors | Kobylin Igor I. Nikolai Fedor V. |
Topic | THE MILITARY CONFLICTS OF THE MORDEN AND CONTEMPORARY HISTORY IN THE OPTICS OF THE COMICAL |
| Summary | The article is based on semi-formalized interviews of Russian veterans of local wars and considers humor in war and irony in combatant’s stories. It would be wrong to oppose irony and humor. They represent different strategies for building distance in relation to the past, but ultimately they perform the same function. Soldier’s humor makes what is happening around “endurable”, helping to translate reality of war (which is difficult to imagine) into everyday language. As a rule “frontline story” supports the tacit hierarchy of military service, in the center of which an experienced fighter or officer is found, accompanied by assistants, and surrounded by the “others”. Irony, on the contrary, is more likely to problematize the generally accepted army hierarchy and traditional heroic narrative about the past. It demonstrates the failure of representation and the futility of narrator’s efforts in dealing with the environment. Then irony takes the next step: instead of confirming the social hierarchy, it strengthens the narrative distance of self-reflection and in this sense it also makes the past “endurable” and indirectly representable. An analysis of irony and army humor shows the ways military experience is connected with narrative and everyday survival practices. Both humor and irony aim at solving one task — to deprive the experience of the traumatic dimension or to soften it therapeutically. | ||
| Keywords | oral history, veterans of local conflicts, irony, humor, commemoration practices | ||
| References |
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