Transformation of the image of Taras Shevchenko during the period of defense of Ukraine 2014–2024: on the example of street art works

During 2014–2024, Ukrainian society faced the existential challenges of
preserving its unity, sovereignty and national identity. Against the background of
current threats, there was a question about the future of the Ukrainian state, as
well as about the lessons of the past. Therefore, figures of creators of the Ukrainian
nation with a strong historical background, including politicians Mykhailo Hrushevskyi,
Pavlo Skoropadskyi, as well as cultural figures Ivan Mykolaichuk, Ivan
Franko, Hryhorii Skovoroda, Taras Shevchenko, have been returned to the space of
public visual communication. The figure of Taras Shevchenko occupies a unique
position in this context because starting from the period of protests on the Maidan
through the Revolution of Dignity and up to the mobilization campaign that unfolded
after the full-scale invasion began his image has always been in the spotlight,
undergoing recontextualization and modernization. Shevchenko became a symbol
of Ukrainian resistance in general, and not only of the state of national culture
of the 19th century – the era in which he lived. Shevchenko became a timeless
cultural symbol, so his semiotic recontextualization takes place without losing the
valuable meaning of his figure for Ukrainian culture. This is the reason the image
of Shevchenko appeared and became inseparable in the context of the Ukrainian
resistance of 2014-2024. No other cultural figure was subject to such recontextualization
but remained an expression of their era. The second feature of the use
of Shevchenko’s image in the visual space during the period of war challenges is
the coexistence of “formal” and “grotesque” (or “political” and “poetic”) pictorial
and semantic strategies. Under peaceful conditions, they are usually antagonistic,
however, while Ukrainian resistance is going on, those visual strategies of use
Shevchenko’s image become complementary and mutually reinforcing, affecting the
re-actualization of Ukrainian national identity milestones.