Ukrainian War Memes: Between "Folk Tales" and New Practices of Identity

One of the new features of the Russian-Ukrainian war communication, which began on 24 February 2022, is the abundance of lively, sparkling humour that fills the media discourse and especially social networks during the most difficult periods of the military campaign. Numerous studies on laughter show that it is part of a certain form of social action. This disposition gives rise to a particular culture of laughter that examines reality through the prism of laughter and comic relief. Using socio-anthropological content analysis, we plan to study the development of new humorous and visual elements on digital platforms (Telegram and FB) during the war in Ukraine, in particular war memes as archetypal elements of the Ukrainian collective imagination as well as constituents of a new identity. We understand the meme as a unit of cultural information that consciously or unconsciously transmits from one to another the idea, image, symbol, action, all cultural information, to form a model of consciousness and human behaviour; it is also the collective unconscious now of acquisition of verbal and visual forms. Formally, Ukrainian war memes are presented as short texts or texts accompanied by images, or as short comic strips. The results show how the memes developed over the period 2022 - 2024. At the beginning of the war, memes existed in the form of 'new folk tales' that identified membership of real or imagined communities. In 2023 - 2024, memes proposed means and mechanisms for recognition and understanding by others. These are elements based primarily on a set of given cultural properties: language, symbols, elements of the mind, myths, modes of perception and expression. Memes also contain mechanisms of ethnocentrism, the creation of stereotypes, the confrontation and opposition of an 'us' group and a 'them' group, and mechanisms for the creation of national identity practices.