Documentary narrative of the communicator as a way of understanding and representing military reality (on the example of the collection by E. Shishatskyi «A journey to the afterlife. Mariupol»)

The article emphasizes that modern Ukrainian military documentary literature is developing at a fast pace, which is due to the modern social context – a full-scale war in Ukraine due to the invasion of the Russian Federation. A long stay in wartime conditions requires understanding, evaluation of events, actualization and explanation for both Ukrainian and foreign audiences, which explains the authors’ interest in this way of reflecting wartime reality. The research focuses on identifying the potential of the narrative method of organizing material in documentary collections about the war in Ukraine. It is emphasized that the specificity of understanding the military reality and its representation by the authors depends on the status of the communicator as an author-observer of the events and the author-participant of the events. If the authors-observers of the events are clearly aware of their communication intentions to achieve specific communication effects (in particular, influence on public opinion), then the participating authors first of all strive to actualize the personal experience of specific events, to think about it, to share it with the audience, to reflect. It was revealed that the collection of e. Shishatskyi «Journey to the Beyond. Mariupol» in the form of «diary entries» – demonstrates the subjective experience of the author, which he experienced during a trip to Mariupol with a volunteer mission, – to help his relatives and countrymen. the experience gained had a significant impact on the author’s value orientations, because he retrospectively spoke about the obstacles he encountered on his way and which he was unable to overcome, about the peculiarities of adaptation to the new reality – the military.