TRAUMA, DISCOURSE AND (UN)GROWING UP

Abstract

In the context of processing the trauma of modernization, the article examines the problem of generation as one of the key issues for a transitional society. The author points out the factor of “narrative inertia”, which leads to a reduction of the research imagination. The phenomenon of the 1968 generation demonstrates the need to take into account the effects of artefactuality and apophaticity as a sine qua non of the problem analysis. The author introduces the “generation/cohort” distinction to articulate the fundamental difference between communities that emerge in response to an unprecedented challenge (as the “covid generation”) and those that can rely on certain precedents. In the context of the study, attention is drawn to the connection between the images of the “adolescent country” (Mayakovsky) and the “Russian boy” (Dostoevsky). It is stated that in the conditions of teenage “fermentation”, the successful completion of the initiation experience is not guaranteed. In this light, the phenomenon of revolution in the modern era is interpreted as a “chance to grow up”. In the post-Soviet era, the processes of mastering previously inaccessible open society practices (“catch-up” modernisation) and the return of the fin de siècle heritage are key in this regard. The author sees the point of divergence between the trajectories of Ukrainian and Russian transitional societies in the process of constructing the trauma of modernisation, in particular, the (non-) involvement of the element of resentment in this procedure. In this light, in the horizon of the whole modernity, the scale of the challenge is emphasised, which is not subject to reduction. The article draws attention to the story of an unheard warning. The masterpieces of fiction (Griboyedov, Turgenev, Chekhov), which formed the canon of reading for the Russian intelligentsia and the basis of the school curriculum of the Soviet period, describe the regular reproduction of the same type of "Russian boy" who is not ready to grow up. The study demonstrates the universality of this challenge in the horizon of the entire modernity. It is concluded that the new unprecedented challenges facing Ukraine and the world in the horizon of the 02/24 situation may be a chance for a “kindred game”, according to Skovoroda.