«Close the Sky» of Neda Nezdana: War, Memory, Women’s Traumatic Experience, Conscious Decoloniality

Abstract

In the article, Neda Nezhdana’s play “Closed Sky” is considered in the theoretical coordinates of postcolonial studies, memory studies, trauma studies, Western European theory of evidence processing in conflict/intervention zones, feminist criticism. It is studied how this play fits into the wider context of modern Ukrainian drama about the full-scale military aggression of Russia against Ukraine. The mechanisms of transformation of one’s own traumatic experience, testimonies and individual oral narratives of eyewitnesses are singled out: first — іnto the space of communicative and discursive practices, and later — іnto a full-fledged artistic material. It was emphasized that it is fundamentally important for Ukrainians to create their own artistic narratives of the current war, to record and interpret its crimes, to include them in the global history of the colonizers’ struggle with Ukrainian identity, and to organize work with transgenerational traumatic memory around this. We must not allow the perception of the war outside of Ukraine to be dominated by narratives of the aggressor. The theatrical and performative potential of the work allows the author of the play to present insightful public stories of strong and self-sufficient Ukrainian women of various ages who suffered from the occupiers and bear witness to their crimes against humanity. “Closed Sky” in Neda Nezhdana’s interpretation turns not into a space of safety and salvation, but into a complex physical and mental labyrinth, which can be opened by unexpected trials and threats, but passing through which cures the heroine of amnesia. The creation of the play, becoming a kind of autopsychotherapy for the author, provokes opportunities for collective psychotherapy in the theater, because our joint work with the traumas of war opens for Ukrainians conscious decolonial perspectives and paves the way to their own stable and unfettered decolonial identity.