“EMERGENCY GRAB BAG” IN UKRAINIANS MEMORIES ABOUT THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN WAR


DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/2520-2626/2025.36.4

Olha HAIDAMACHUK

Abstract


The article is devoted to the study of the tonality of memories through the analysis of the associative field of the phrase “emergency grab bag” and synonyms for the word “suitcase” primarily as metaphors of memories in the discourse of Ukrainians about their war experience. If the image of a suitcase itself is often associated with travel and does not necessarily mean danger, and the suitcase as a metaphor reflects the situation "in-between" with its hidden anxiety, then the phrase "emergency grab bag" semantically highlights anxiety, the context of a certain danger. Therefore, "emergency grab bag" as a metaphor means the preservation and salvation of memories from the chaos caused by war. It is about unhidden anxious temporal-spatial "in-between-ness" with its endangered or saved as well as healing memories. The research material was the archive of 104 semi-structured anonymous interviews recorded by 6 researchers from the group “Prisma Ukraїnа: War, Migration, Memory” from the end of 2022 and throughout 2023. Despite the differences in the questionnaires for each of the six archive collections, all the interviews have some common questions about memories and history. A general description of the theme of each collection, as well as an overview of the fieldwork, are presented in the tables. The examples of literal, figurative, and metaphorical use of words with the semantics of suitcase found in the archive are classified into six varieties, namely: 1) one’s own “emergency grab bag”, 2)  “emergency grab bag” mentioned in the media, 3) the catchphrase “sitting on suitcases”, 4) the image of “life packed in a suitcase”, 5) othering / distancing from strangers’ suitcases, 6) “interference in intimate space” / robbery. The tonal peculiarities and nuances of each variety are analyzed using selected examples from interviews with various collections. A generalized classification is presented in two other author's tables, namely: statistics of the corresponding cases of use of each of the meanings in each of the archive collections, as well as examples with quotes for each of the six varieties of meanings. Finally, detailed comments are also provided on additional examples. In the future, the author is going to explore the (un)secure foundations of the tonality of the memories of this archive, in order to thereby reveal the hierarchy of accessible, silenced, or repressed memories.

Keywords


remembrance; discourse; tonality; “sitting on suitcases”; displacement; uncertainty

References


Alquist J. L., & Baumeister R. F. (2023). Dealing with uncertain situations. In: The Journal of Positive Psychology. 19(6). Pp. 923–946. URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2023.2282781

Ahmed S. (2014). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. 2nd Ed. Edinburgh University Press Ltd. 256 р.

Bakke K. M., Rickard K., O’Loughlin J., & Toal G. (2024). Politicizing Memory: Evidence from Ukraine. Problems of Post-Communism. 72(1). Pp. 16–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2024.2316037

Bednarek M. (2008). Semantic preference and semantic prosody re-examined. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Vol. 4. No. 2. Рp. 119−139. https://doi.org/10.1515/CLLT.20 08.00.

Belk R. (1988). Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research. 15: 2. Pp. 139–58.

Burnos T. (2022). State Border Service of Ukraine: more than 870 thousand people have returned to the country since the beginning of the war. Voice of America. 12 April, 2022. URL: https://www. golosameriki.com/a/ukraine-refugees-return/6526517.html

Carnegie E. and Kociatkiewicz J. (2024). Holders of Battered Memories: Exploring Suitcases As Museum Metaphors For Travel, Exile, and Incarceration. Curator: The Museum Journal. 67(4): 821–834. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12642

Carolina A. de Chirinos. (2022). Bipedal migrant suitcase: container of a psyche in transition. Journal of Analytical Psychology. Vol. 62. Iss. 2. Pp. 518–527. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12785

Crooke E. (2014). The Migrant and the museum: Place and representation in Ireland. Laurence Gouriévidis(ed.), Museums and Migration: History, Memory and Politics. Oxford: Routledge. Рp. 190–201.

Fedoriv P., Lomonosova N. (2019). Housing Policy in Ukraine: Current State and Prospects for Reform. Hg. v. Cedos. URL: https://cedos.org.ua/pdf/CEDOS_Державна-житлова-політика_Звіт.pdf

Grebe M., Kandemir S., Tillmann P. (2024). Uncertainty about the war in Ukraine: Measurement and effects on the German economy. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. Vol. 217. Pp. 493–506. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2023.11.015 URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167268123004213

Haidamachuk O. (2023). The ‘Emergency Grab Bag’ of Memory, or the Tonalities of News Headlines About the War in Ukraine – Part One, in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 21.03.2023. URL: https://trafo.hypotheses.org/45765

Haidamachuk O. (2023). The ‘Emergency Grab Bag’ of Memory, or the Tonalities of News Headlines About the War in Ukraine – Part Two. TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research. 20.06.2023. URL: https://trafo.hypotheses.org/47670

Halbwachs M. (2011). The Collective Memory”. Jeffrey K. Olick, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi, and Daniel Levy, eds., The Collective Memory Reader. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 139–149.

Heard Matthew M. (2013). Tonality and Ethos. In: Philosophy & Rhetoric. 46 (1). Pp. 44–64. https://doi.org/10.5325/philrhet.46.1.0044

Hicks Dan. (2020). The brutish museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution. London: Pluto Press. 348 p.

Hundorova T. (2024). Tranzytna kultura i postkolonialna travma [Transit culture and postcolonial trauma]. Kyjiv: Vikhola, 2024. 248 p. (in Ukrainian).

Ivanenko S. (1999). Polifonia tekstu [Polyphony of a Text]. Кyiv. Vydavnychyj centr KNLU [Publishing center of the Kyiv National Linguistic University]. 318 p. (in Ukrainian).

Kouraki C. (2024). Unpacking Nostalgia: Suitcases as Symbols of Nostalgia in Picturebooks about Refugees. Libri et liberi, 13 (2). Pp. 271–290. https://doi.org/10.21066/carcl.libri.13.2.8

Löfgren O. (2016). Containing the Past, the Present and the Future: Packing a Suitcase. In: Narodna umjetnost - Hrvatski časopis za etnologiju i folkloristiku. 53/1. Pp. 59–64. URL: https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=441061

Lörincz M. (2022). A Corpus Analysis of the Representation of the War in Ukraine in the International Press. The Journal of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Series: Foreign philology. Methods of foreign language teaching. 96. Pp. 115–130. https://doi.org/10.26565/2786-5312-2022-96-08

McDonald L. (2022). Reimagining Illocutionary Force. The Philosophical Quarterly. Volume 72. Issue 4. October. Pp. 918–939. https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqab063

Mozetič K., Lebek K., Ratzmann N. (2023). Using the lens of emotions: Exploring Ukrainian refugee women’s anchoring processes in Berlin. Culture, Practice & Europeanization. 8 (2). Pp. 238–248. DOI: 10.5771/2566-7742-2023-2-238

Petrucelli J. (2023). What’s in Your Suitcase? Clothes, Compulsive Shopping and Packing Communicate the Unspeakable. Psychoanalytic Dialogues. 33(2). Pp. 256–266. https://doi.org/10.1080/10481885.2023.2176151

Potyah: 1 seriya [A Train] / directed by Volodymyr Yanoshchuk. Nova melodrama na 1+1 Ukrayina. Serial 2024 (40:50). YouTube Channel 1+1. 11.10.2024. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJyUFEt9D4I (in Ukrainian).

Sereda V. (ed.) (2025). War, Migration, Memory. Perspectives on Russia’s War Against Ukraine. Forum Transregionale Studien – Dossiers, 4/2025, transcript Verlag, Bielefeld. 420 p. URL: https://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-7587-0/war-migration-memory/

Sopova A. (2023). Anxious suitcases and their contents: Experiences of the war in Ukraine through a material lens. American Ethnologist. Journal of American Ethnological Society. Vol. 50. Iss.1. Pp. 54–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.13123

Stephens M.; Lux M.; Sunega P. (2015). Post-Socialist Housing Systems in Europe: Housing Welfare Regimes by Default? In: Housing Studies. 30 (8). Pp. 1210–1234. DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2015.1013090

Szerszeń T. (2025). To Survive: Towards an Anthropology of Shelter”, Teksty Drugie [Online], 1, Online since 15 December 2024, connection on 16 December 2024. URL: http:// journals.openedition.org/td/28647

Voytiv S. (2023). Diasporic group boundaries and solidarity in the making: collective memory in the anti-war protests in Sweden. Ethnic and Racial Studies. 47(2). P. 391–410. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2023.2261289

Winter J. (2015). Museums and the Representation of War. Museum & Society. 10(3). Pp. 150–163. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v10i3.211

Wnuk A., Góralska J. (2024). ‘Home is just a feeling’: Essentialist and anti-essentialist views on home among Ukrainian war refugees. Emotion, Space and Society. Volume 53. 101052. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2024.101052

Zabuzhko O. (2009). Muzei pokynutykh sekretiv [Museum of the Abandoned Secrets] / 2 ed. Kyiv: Fakt. (in Ukrainian).

Zenchenko І.О. (2017). Tsyvilna tryvozhna valizka [Civilian emergency grab bag]. Problemy formuvannya zdorovoho sposobu zhyttya u molodi: zb. materialiv KH Vseukr. nauk.-prakt. konf. molodykh uchenykh ta studentiv z mizhnar. uchastyu Odesa, 29 Sept.– 1 Oct. 2017 / Odessa National Academy of Food Technologies; Ed. by В.V. Yehorov. Pp. 299–300. URI: https://card-file.ontu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/9072 (in Ukrainian).

Yi-Neumann, Friedemann, Andrea Lauser, Antonie Fuhse, and Peter J. Bräunlein. (2022). Material culture and (forced) migration: Materializing the transient. London: UCL Press. 352.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.