The Ontological Status of the Curse and the War in Ukraine

Olena Klymentova

Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine)

https://doi.org/10.53656/bel2025-3-7O

Abstract. The purpose of the article is to clarify the ontological status of cursing in Ukrainian hate speech.  There is a ruining etiquette standard, a neglect of many ritualized communicative forms aimed at the opponent’s face-saving in a problematic interaction, as well as a landslide violation of speech taboos. This tendency is seen in almost all communication spheres, including public media speech. Hate speech has emerged as the anticipated outcome of the crisis adjustment in the communicative inventory of Ukrainians. Curses are an effective means of hate speech in its institutional and profane forms, rooted in religious communication. The use of curses in various religious traditions has revealed a wide range of communicative intentions, from fear and destruction to protection and higher justice. In the Ukrainian context, household curses gradually lost their invective potential and primarily served as a communicative marker of affective empathy. However, the Russian-Ukrainian war changed this trend. Ukrainian curses demonstrated the effect of “forgetting as the ability to reconstruct” of new forms of both reproduction and sublimation of emotional negativity in wartime.

Keywords: curse; hate speech; Russian-Ukrainian war; media and political technology

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