Personal War Narratives: Mediatization of Experience in Microgenres (The Case of the Sketch)

The article explores personal narratives within the socio-communicative discourse of war, with a particular focus on their mediatization through microgenres. Special attention is given to the sketch as a genre of short personal prose. The aim of the study is to examine how personal war experiences are represented and mediatized through the sketch genre. The research is interdisciplinary, combining literary, media, and psychological approaches. It reveals that in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war, sketches have become a significant tool for mediatizing the experiences of Ukrainians. This is due to the sketch’s capacity to concisely reflect reality, adapt to digital environments, and convey personal emotional experiences in a public space. The study emphasizes that sketches are most actively disseminated via social media, especially Facebook, whose format aligns well with the genre’s characteristics. Recently, sketches have also been integrated into institutional platforms archiving wartime testimonies. The analysis identifies three main authorial positions within the studied corpus of sketches: the eyewitness, the participant, and the reflective observer. Sketches serve multiple functions: informing, documenting, communicating, mobilizing society, shaping collective memory, and offering psychotherapeutic, empathic, and ethical engagement. They are addressed to broad public audiences, yet also target specific groups such as military personnel, adversaries, and the authors themselves. The article underlines the sketch’s contribution to the democratization of authorship in times of war.