Ментальна топографія травми (за романом володимира рафєєнка петрикор – запах землі після дощу)

The article is research into the traumatic experience of war, based on the Volodymyr Rafieienko’s novel Petrichor – Smell of the Earth after the Rain. It’s logical to examine this text from the position of trauma studies, which have become very actual in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war and its consequences. The writer represented the prospect of overcoming collective and individual trauma in a very original way. He describes in details the painful experiences caused by the forced resettlement of people, and most of all – the feeling of guilt due to the death of close ones. Rafieienko’s novel reflects the world of imagination of a person with a disturbed psyche. In such a way, he suggests a new kind of narration where imaginarium (the world of fantasy, visions and the dreams of the characters) and the pictures of an unbearable reality, which must be recalled to understand the depth of the pain in order to continue living, are crossed in a natural way. Petrichor… represents the author’s individual vision of the cultural trauma, which causes a radical change in human identity. This new identity is the creative force and at the same time, it impresses on one the state of total danger, nationwide mobilization and solidarity. The writer raises the issue of sacred sacrifice. We mean the price that must be paid for the renunciation of the difficult past. All this leads to a persistent psychological disorder within the novel’s characters. Thus, Rafieienko carries out a mental topography of trauma, indicating its important markers and motives within a specific geocultural space.