BINARY OPPOSITION «HOME-HOMELESSNESS» IN THE NOVEL «ORPHANAGE» BY SERHII ZHADAN

This article examines the novel of the famous Ukrainian writer Serhii Zhadan «ORPHANAGE» (2017) in terms of the implementation of the binary opposition «home / homelessness». The novel is written in travel genre and covers the events of the war between Ukraine and the Russian Federation in Donbass. It is the theme of the war and the genre of the work that creates the ground for the image of the characters outside their home: sometimes being homeless is not knowing whose side of the war your home is on. The article reveals the specifics of the topic of homelessness in a hybrid war in Ukraine using the intertextual research method. Paratextual analysis is involved: the meaning of the title of the novel, annotation, other extra-textual superstructures for revealing new meanings of the text in the discourse of the researched topic is analyzed. In particular, the linguistic material is partially analyzed taking into account the bilingual population of Donbass. Intertextual connections with the Bible, works by F. Dostoevskii, M. Bulgakov, intermediate components, etc. are revealed.

Theme of homelessness in Ukrainian literature requires deep scientific research. In contest of hybrid war the theme is of current importance.
One of the issues discussed today in Eastern Europe and beyond is the Donbass warfare between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Despite the fact that the media and secondary literature [9] are still debating how to classify the events in Donbass, I think it is appropriate in the literary rather than juridical analysis to rely on the opinion of the author of the novel, Serhii Zhadan, who describes the events in Eastern Ukraine as a war (hybrid war), as an eyewitness.
The novel «Orphanage» by Serhii Zhadan (2017) [5] has become a real milestone in Ukrainian literature and is recognized internationally and in 2018 was awarded the Leipzig Book Fair. This is one of the most popular novels in Ukraine, that is why we will try to consider home and homelessness on the example of this work. According to the tradition of scientific research, it is worth starting with a brief overview of the literary studies reception devoted to the novel. Yes, the work is relatively «young», so no deep monographic work appeared in literary criticism. However, it can be stated that since the publication of the novel and up to the present there have been a number of articles on the novel «Orphanage»: in the article of Alessandro Achilli «Literature Between Civic Engagement, Trauma, and Aesthetic Freedomin Contemporary Ukraine» (2020) [15] the author considers the novel «Orphanage» as a moral guide for Ukrainian society in a state of war. In her СЕКЦІЯ XVIII. ФІЛОЛОГІЯ ТА ЖУРНАЛІСТИКА article «The Synchronous War Novel: Or deal of the Unarmed Personin Serhii Zhadan's Orphanage» (2019) [21] Tania Zakharchenko «draws connections not only between the story's plot arc and the ongoingwar, but also between Ukraine's past and present from the perspective of trauma theory» [20].
In article by A. Melnik «Serhii Zhadan 'Orphanage': Dog's Spirit of War»(2019) [8] is devoted to study of the image of a dog that occurs more often in the novel, according to the author of the article, than images of other characters. In another article by I. Stadnik, «The Concept of War, in Serhii Zhadan's 'Orphanage'» (2017) [13], an individual and authorial interpretation of the concept of «war» is considered. The motif of the road in the novel is explored in the works of E. Stanisevich «'Orphanage' by Zhadan: The Road to a Quiet Home» (2017) [14], by L. Krupka «Roads of the Donbass in the Artistic Concept of Serhii Zhadan (Based on 'Orphanage')» (2019) [7]. Researcher I. Onykienko in article «Polydiscursiveness of Serhii Zhadan's novel 'Orphanage'»(2019) [11] examines the role of discursive formats for formation of human identity.
Deserves listening to the article of U. Fedoriv «Non-Home motif in Sergei Zhadan's novel 'Boarding House'» (2019) [16], in which the author says: «Attention is drawn to the fact that the author uses the traditional motif of the road, appealing to the topic of farewell to his home and the possible (non) returning (to) the Home» [16].
Thus, we can conclude that the novel «Orphanage» by Serhii Zhadan is still little researched. The topic of homelessness, especially in the aspect of intertextual analysis, is not explored in the work at all.
First of all, the paratextual connections of the novel should be emphasized. According to the classification of J. Jenette [6], paratextuality as one of the varieties of transtextuality is the relation of the text to its title, epigraph, and other extra-text add-ons. Therefore, we pay attention, first of all, to the dialog of the text of the novel with the abstract and the title. The title is the bearer of the main idea of the work, to a certain extent, the «lobby», in which the reader makes his predictions about the content and meaning of the future reading.
So, orphanage (this is the title of the novel) is the institution where children stay round-the-clock. The word «orphanage» has mostly a negative synonymous series: it is, in fact, a synonym for the word «homeless», because such institutions are usually sent primarily to children who have difficult living conditions and who cannot live in their own homes. Therefore, the title of the novel is called an oxymoron, as a boarding school is a temporary home and its inhabitants are both homeless and have a home at the same time.
The novel represents typical features of the postmodern tradition in Ukrainian literature: the post-structuralism theorist, Yu. Kristeva [18], emphasizes that the text, as an autonomous organizational structure, is in constant semantic movement. Therefore, there is always a game with the reader who becomes a co-author of a work that produces a large number of interpretations of both the plot and non-plot elements, including titles, sequences, and more. Thus, the word internat (title transliteration) is of foreign origin and is translated from Latin internus as 'inside'.
This gives some key to understanding the chronotope of the work: the novel's action is structured by days (lasting three days) and takes place in a city whose name S. Zhadan does not mention at the beginning (2015, Donbass). The plot has a 182 SECTION XVIII. PHILOLOGY AND JOURNALISM concentric structure with a clear point of return: the hero seems to walk in circles in time and space, and this cycle begins after reaching a clear point in his time: timethe second day of travel, place -orphanage. At the same time, the differentiation of the topos into several layers is quite clear: the protagonist's own house as a physical13 representation of the concept of «home» and the city blocked by the fighters, in which the protagonist wants to get inside.
The novel starts with the abstract: «… He happens to be forced to cross that line. To then go back. And for that, he at least needs to decide whose side his home is on…» [5, р. 5].
It is in the abstract that the binary opposition to homelessness, the home, is presented before the main text. Such opposition in the novel is used in the traditions of postmodern writing, which often creates dichotomized plots of works around the components of the opposition. In addition, the archetype of the home, which in any culture, including the Slavic, occupies an important place, is represented in the text of the novel in several modifications. Therefore, we consider it reasoned to organize the presentation of the material according to sub-topics, which are in one way or another related to home / homelessness as central concepts in the above opposition.
The physical aspect of the concept of «home» The point of reference in the work is the home of the protagonist, Pasha. He is a school teacher who lives in the war zone in the Donbass. The military conflict took the civilian population by surprise, disrupting the usual course of life. At the beginning of the novel, a detailed description of the interior and exterior of the house where Pasha resides with his elderly father: «Pasha loved this house, lived here all his life, was going to live on. It was built by German prisoners, right after the war. It was a rather spacious two-family building. Second Street from the train station, a densely populated private sector with mostly station workers. Their whole village was being built around the station: it gave jobs, it also gave hope, like a heart-black smoke from the steam-smoke, pumping the blood of nearby beams and forest strips» [5, р. 7].
Each movement of Pasha in his home is accompanied with descriptions of one or another element of the interior: «The furniture in the house is old, but living: it will outlive the present owners» [5, р. 7]. The given descriptions reflect a picture of the impoverishment of the dwelling, almost its loss (after all, half of the building burned down, which made it simply destroyed). Every morning, Pasha, when he goes to work to school where he works as a teacher, smells the sweet smell of gas from the burned-out cooker, but it is this smell that gives him a sense of comfort and peace. It should be emphasized that odor as a suggestive characteristic of the text is very active in the novel. The protagonist remembers the smell of home at the most difficult times. And even in one of the strongest positions of the text ˗ the absolute end ˗ it is about the smells of the house, to which Pasha and Sania for all that returned: «The house smells of fresh sheets» [5, р. 335]. This pleasant smell, which has connotations of protection / security / fortress, is to some extent set off against the «smell of wet dog» that haunts the characters throughout the novel and is associated with death.
At the beginning of the war, Pasha becomes unemployed in a dilapidated СЕКЦІЯ XVIII. ФІЛОЛОГІЯ ТА ЖУРНАЛІСТИКА house that looks like half a loaf on a store shelf ˗ another Slavic symbol (bread) that has positive connotations and, despite the unsightly picture of the main character's house, enhances the reader's positive attitude to the dwelling. In addition to the provided description, the text mentions two significant details that are more likely to play the role of contrast. The first detail: the house was half owned by Pasha's family before the war, and half belonged to a railway worker (the description of whom is only formal and not detailed at all), who after the fire in his own half did not rebuild it, but took a train and went east and did not return any more. Who is he ˗ a homeless, a refugee? Another detail is that there are workshops around the house that before the war were filled with people, but now «… there were just swallows and homeless people in the workshops» [5, р. 7].
Thus, the concept of «home» at the beginning of the novel is first represented by its physical component in the form of the protagonist's house, which is the starting point and end point of the events of the novel. This is the topos from which Pasha embarks on his journey. But will it be the same topos at the time of his return.
At home among strangers, a stranger among his people The events of the novel, as it was mentioned above, are set to unfold in 2015. However, the chronotope of the work is quite complicated, because it has several layers. One such layer is the hero's memories of the beginning of the war. Pasha remembers the arrival of wounded Ukrainian soldiers to his hometown. The main character identifies belonging to the Ukrainian Armed Forces by the flag on military equipment (the author does not indicate colors, but there is a detail ˗ the flag is the same as at the school where Pasha works).
The soldiers choose the place of temporary residence (the text does not mention the availability of a hospital or medical facility in the city, that would be more logical for the development of the plot). Despite the complete absence of proper conditions, the injured are brought to the first classroom ˗ the classroom of the Ukrainian language. It is symbolic that this is not a study of mathematics or any other subject, namely the Ukrainian language. After all, the «language» issue was one of the cornerstones in the war in the Donbass.
The classroom is described in only one dialogue, but rather meaningful: «-And who is this? -nods the machine gunner at portraits.
-Dead,-Pasha says just in case.
The dialogue uses zero ekphrasis as one of the components of intertextuality. The portraits do not contain a detailed personalized description, but anybody would fit the definition of «good dead poets» (this refers only to Ukrainian, because the Ukrainian language classroom). Thus, a whole layer of Ukrainian poetry is embedded in the semantic field of the given episode, which has traditionally served as a reference point, especially in matters of protection of one's home ˗ the Motherland. Analyzing the given ekphrasis more narrowly, taking into account the mentality of a typical Ukrainian, who saw the portraits that usually hang in Ukrainian language classrooms, we can confidently name at least two ˗ portraits of Taras Shevchenko and Ivan Franko.
Thus, the expansion of the semantic field of the novel «Orphanage» is achieved 184 SECTION XVIII. PHILOLOGY AND JOURNALISM by adding those meanings that are read in the works of these poets. Both Taras Shevchenko and Ivan Franko, being representatives of different parts of Ukraine, in their civic and patriotic lyrics solved the same issue ˗ the national self-identification of Ukrainians.
The events that are happening in classroom don`t cause special emotions and, moreover, Pasha is almost equally mistrustful to both -his people and others. This is in line with the trend that was relevant for 2015 (the time of events in the novel). The war lasted only the first year, so the civilians of the Donbass were mistrusted in the conditions of hybrid warfare.
Knowing nothing about the types of military ammunition or other markings, Pasha focuses on the colors of the flag and the language spoken by the fighters. Of course, the vast majority of the population of Donbass is Russian-speaking, but the level of fluency in the Slobozhan language of the Russian language can betray a visiting soldier, who has been roaming [12] in the East of Ukraine. These are such the strangers that Pasha meets when leaving the station in the city: «Dirty uniform, smoky-dirty faces, heavy mud scum on the shoes. And the flag above the tower is dark and oiled, like a bandage that has long been applied to an open wound. Pasha tries to understand what the colors are, but you can't even distinguish them» [5, р. 78].
Serhii Zhadan very simply and without undue emphasis describes this aspect of the Donbass events, the participation of «unknown» armed formations that protect the «Russian world» on a foreign land. Outside soldiers of unknown nationality. It is almost impossible to find their names in the text (although no names are given to the Ukrainian militarists, either), except for single but rather colorful names: the Russian-language transliteration of the name Alexei Yeliseich and the Muslim name Rustem, that at the linguistic level are allusions to the Russian transnational army.
The events described in the novel on the third day are significantly different from the previous two days. First of all, the dynamics in the development of the protagonist, who after experiencing the twists and turns already starts to clearly understand his own position as well as to distinguish his people and others: «Obviously, during this time they did not go anywhere, and to the last they kept their burrows without letting strangers in» [5, р. 185].
It is worth noting that not only images of permanent characters (Pasha, nephew, etc.) are dynamic, but also images of strangers. If at the beginning of the novel it is not quite clear how they differ from others (because the story goes from the position of the inert Pasha so far), then in the end differentiation becomes clearer: «At the broken door of the porch stand military men, these new ones, papakhas on their heads, the uniform is unknown, the chevrons are unknown, Pasha has never even seen those» [5, р. 187].
On the third day the protagonist finally has the opportunity to «view» his people on his way home, when he and his nephew Sania came across the hospital. Left alone with a dying very young soldier, the protagonist tries to fulfill his death request ˗ to call home. The last number dialed is «home» [5, р. 320]. This is not the phone number of a family member (whom had he to call to ˗ wife, child, mother?). Let's compare this phone call with another: it's one day earlier, in a boarding school. Near the sapper's СЕКЦІЯ XVIII. ФІЛОЛОГІЯ ТА ЖУРНАЛІСТИКА corpse, every day before the first lesson at school (that is, at ten minutes to eight), the child calls his father, not knowing that he is already dead. This is the same call from home, but literally one day earlier the concept of «home» in the novel is physical, and at the end of events ˗ metaphysical.
Land as a topos of the sacred The theme of the war for land is closely connected with the idea of sacralization of land and the establishment of so-called «historical justice» (such term was used by the Russian Federation for the recognition of part of Donbass (de jure ˗ the territory of Ukraine) as autonomous republics (the so-called LPR and DPR). History is a subject of manipulation by the masses. To do this the available media are used: in almost every room the protagonist enters, there is a TVset that works and shows the news. The vast majority of the news mentioned in the text is the war in Donbass. For example, the TV in Pasha's house is described as follows: «It is like an eternal fire: it burns not so much for the consolation of the living as in memory of the dead» [5, р. 7].
Peter, a character whom Pasha suddenly meets on his journey to orphanage, says on love to history: «… I like your love of history.
[…] but I`d advise you to treat history carefully» [5, р. 35]. It is such propagandistic manipulations with minds of the population lead to, according to Peter, «No one knows anything, no one trusts anyone» [5, р. 35]. The names of the heroes ˗ Pasha (Paul) and Peter ˗ are immediately called the apostles of Jesus Christ. Despite the fact that Peter and Paul are glorified on the same day (according to the Orthodox calendar ˗ July 12), these apostles are quite different. One is a simple fisherman (Peter) and Paul is a representative of the Jewish elite. This is how Peter talks about history: «in your country learning history is like fishing -you can never know what you`ll fish out» [5, р. 35]. Therefore, the professions of heroes can be interpreted from this position: Peter is a representative of the press (i.e. «catches» news), Pasha, as noted above ˗ a teacher and wears «intelligent» glasses (representatives of this profession have always belonged to the intellectual elite).
The intertextual connection to the Bible at the level of allusion is further confirmed by the fact that the first building where Pasha and Peter go together is a cafe called Paradise. It is the apostle Peter who stands at the gates of Paradise according to the religious beliefs of Christians. However, the description of the cafe's interior is little like paradise, as the institution serves as a temporary haven for military men who drink cheap liquor, smoke strong cheap cigarettes, and watch the news again: «At one side there is a door of the restroom, from the other side are plasmas. There is no empty seat at the tables, the soldiers sit, watching TV on themselves» [5, р. 31].
For the second time, the heroes meet each other on the way back, but Pasha is already emphasizing the communication between him and Peter: in spite of the fact that the advantages were on the side of a foreign army, the hero proudly states that he is a teacher of the Ukrainian language.
The historical self-identification theme is raised in the second half of the novel on symbolic and intertextual levels: one of the Ukrainian military presents Pasha a piece of coal with a fern imprint, which he took from the broken museum. This exhibit is a symbol of history and its inflexible objectivity: «We weren`t even born when it 186 SECTION XVIII. PHILOLOGY AND JOURNALISM was a million years old. We will die and it will exist. History, understand? That ishistory. We are not: we are here today, but tomorrow we are not» [5, р. 305].
As was mentioned above, the novel's paratextual connection with extra-textual additions provides the key to discovering new meanings. One of the add-ons is its cover [19]. The fern depicted on the cover is mentioned only at the end of the text. At the same time, the reader must interpret the meaning of this symbol and relate it to the meaning. At the mythological level, the fern is a mystical plant that is subconsciously understood by every Ukrainian. This is especially evident in the pagan beliefs of ancient Ukrainians about the power of the fern flower, which must be plucked on the night of Ivan Kupala (the holiday integrates elements of Christian and pagan rites, celebrated on the night of 6 to 7 July). Thus, the mythologism of the fern in the novel intertextually connects the text of the work with a layer of prehistoric beliefs in the incredible forces of a man. Receiving a stone with the imprint of a prehistoric fern, Pasha seems to receive a magical flower, and with it ˗ new strength and opportunities, returns to its Ukrainian authenticity.
In addition, the Feast of Ivan Kupala is the chronological predecessor of the Day of Remembrance of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, which sacralizes the events of the novel. The problem of national self-identification has its roots long before the advent of Christianity.
Refugees from the city Refugees in the novel are represented mostly by female characters. The scene at the station, filled with women and children, is essential for understanding this problem.
A station assistant Aliosha takes Pasha and the women out of the city. This form of the name is not typical either for the Russian language (the most commonly used ˗ Liosha), or especially for the Ukrainian (Olexii). However, this name causes a number of associations to the experienced reader ˗ associated with the novel «The Karamazov Brothers» by Fedor Dostoevsky (1878-1880) [4]. This intertext with Fedor Dostoevsky's novel has a fairly transparent meaning: as Aliosha Dostoyevsky, as a monk, «brings other heroes of the novel to the stage» [10, р. 362], and Zhadan's Aliosha brings out «passengers»: «Aliosha runs over, and everyone runs after him, Aliosha squats in the grass -everyone repeats, Aliosha says to shut their mouths ˗ who does not listen to Aliosha» [5, р. 89].
The escaping process of fugitives is accompanied by a detailed description of almost every one of them, starting with age and ending with things that each one carries with them. This whole picture seems strange to Pasha and reminds him of a train car, one of those standing at the train station: «They are standing, waiting their turn: no one will be alive» [5, р. 85] Such a fatal prognosis is supported by the use of the same technique mentioned above: one of the women (by age ˗ a girl) is called Annushka. Serhii Zhadan uses orthoepically atypical form of the name for neither Russian nor Ukrainian, even for the Donbass bilingual. But the field for interpreting the image in the context of the topic under study is more: the most probable variant is the intertext with Mikhail Bulgakov's novel «Master and Margarita» [3], in which the phrase «Annushka has already bought oil» became phraseologism and means «Why be, be gone».
In addition, one should not rule out an intermedial interpretation of the image,

СЕКЦІЯ XVIII. ФІЛОЛОГІЯ ТА ЖУРНАЛІСТИКА
because Annushka is the main character of a Soviet film of the same name [1], which deals with the asperity of a woman with children during World War II. From the first scene of the film, the viewer gets acquainted with the happy family of Anushka, who has a husband Peter, son Sasha, daughter Nina. All the names mentioned are in the novel «Orphanage». World War II suddenly catches the heroine, who is forced to leave her home and return to her hometown only after the war is over. With some differences, but very similar, Serhii Zhadan describes women at the station who have lost their homes and hope to return to their hometown after the war with their children. Annushka is in a hurry to go home earlier than others, because someone is waiting for her there. The way to the destination was difficult, and it was expected: the group of refugees came under fire, so Aliosha disappears completely unnoticed (by the way, like Peter in the previous episode). The author rather skillfully deduces «auxiliary» characters from the plot, who, however, leave the semantic load for the sake of which they were introduced into the plot.
Pasha replaces Aliosha, and maybe not too sure, but still brings women to the end, as if an apostle with whom faith remains. This is the name of the heroine (Vira -means 'faith' from Ukrainian) of the second plan, who turns out to be a prostitute. She follows Pasha and does not leave him until a certain time: «Faith is not behind» [5, р. 102], «Faith is following him» [5, р. 104]. In this fragment of the plot, the characters seem to form one whole. The woman does not move away from the hero even one step. Her whole image consists of contradictory details: a fur coat on a naked body, a prostitute with a Christian name. Intertextually, the image of the harlot and the apostle Paul is connected with the First Epistle to the Corinthians: «Do you not know that one who has intercourse with a harlot becomes one body with her? For it is said, "Two shall be one flesh"» [2] As a whole, the heroes move to the very center of the city. This completes the function of «faith». Paul received the necessary part of the transformation he undergoes throughout the novel. That is why on the way back home Pasha finds only a wet fur coat from the girl he returned for. But the previous Pasha (the one who was before the meeting with Vera) would not return for the woman at all.
In contrast to Paul, faith literally left his twin sister. Her name is not mentioned in the novel. She left her city a long time ago, leaving her son Sasha in an orphanage because she did not believe in improvement. Among the apostles of Jesus Christ was one whose name means «twin» ˗ Thomas. It was this apostle who did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ until he saw it with his own eyes. At the allusive level, the images of the twin sister and the apostle Thomas have similar features.
Thus, Serhii Zhadan focuses on various reasons for nomading in Donbass: one can become homeless not only because of the fear of being physically destroyed, but also because of disbelief in the «resurrection» of the home.
Orphanage as a symbol of homelessness As noted above, the center of the novel's plot and meaning-making component is the hostel, which becomes symbolic in the work. This is a separate topos in the topos. One of those in which the main character travels. An important perception of the reality of the situation comes namely at the orphanage. The room, like all others, is described in sufficient detail. However, there is one tangible difference between 188 SECTION XVIII. PHILOLOGY AND JOURNALISM the interiors of these topos: there is no TV in the dorm. The orphanage itself is, to a certain extent, a prison: «There is a new lock on the metal gate, a long chain is winded around it. Paint on the gate says: "Children". No fire, no voice. The sign was spared, though there was no flag over the porch» [5, р. 116].
Sasha meets his uncle with disbelief, because he does not understand why he has not yet been taken to a safe place. Together with the boy, there are other children in the bomb shelters, who also don't have a place to go. Looking at Sasha, the protagonist thinks to himself: «A sentenced to death in a solitary cell» [5, р. 129]. It is in the orphanage that Pasha thinks for the first time about the meaning of home and a deeper understanding of homelessness. This is how the hero remembers one of his close women: «Where did she leave her clothes? Where is her home? When will she get there? Half of them have no homes: they scattered to nearby cities, got out of here by endless cars, lost the world. How long does it take now for them to return? And when they return, will they recognize their homes?» [5, р. 125] The author does not mention who it is. And out of context, it could be Marina (ex-girlfriend of the hero), Vira, and prostitute Anna, and even a sister. However, all of these characters appear in a novel outside of their homes.
Here, at the orphanage, Pasha begins to realize some common truth and see things clearly: «Each of us is living in an orphanage. Left by everyone…» [5, р. 147].
Whose side of the war is our home on?
Having analized the structure of the artistic world in the novel «orphanage» by Serhii Zhadan, it ould be claimed that the author builds a plot around the concept of «home», presented in the text in various modifications. The theme of war is one that simultaneously touches upon the problems of losing one's home, refugees, sacralization of the land for which they die in the war. All these aspects are, to varying degrees, present and resolved at different levels in the novel.
The genre version of the novel also contributes to this: the work is a typical «road-story» that determines the frequent change of topos, the farness of all the characters from the house, their depiction in road conditions. It is worth noting that an entire understanding of the work, that is, the problems raised in it, is possible only after a complete reading. As noted, the author keeps a concentric principle, not a linear one: that is, the point of start and finish is one and the same ˗ the main character's house. And here, at the end of the text, the annotation paratext begins to «work» to reveal the meaning of the whole work: being homeless is not just literally not having the building in which you live. Sometimes it's not knowing which side of the war your home is on.
The realization comes to the protagonist: he begins to understand that household chores, the sweet smell of gas from an old stove, and shabby furniture are really great. For three days, Pasha and Sania traveled to many abandoned residences seeking temporary shelter and warmth. Not only Ukraine seemed to be in a state of war, but the whole world seemed to be an orphanage. This is evidenced by the symbolic description of the stop in the center of the city: «On the wall ˗ a statepainted flag, also burned. They see a sign on a brick ˗ white on blue: "ORPHANAGE"» [5, р. 138]. This is probably the only mention of the national flag (as the national symbol of Ukraine), which, as already mentioned, was not shown on any building.
During those three days, Pasha met dozens of people who had lost their СЕКЦІЯ XVIII. ФІЛОЛОГІЯ ТА ЖУРНАЛІСТИКА homes and were looking for protection. But it was no compassion to them (those are the words the hero repeated in the hospital when he saw the death of a young Ukrainian soldier, or when he saw a cut corpse of an unknown Ukrainian in the fridge in a kindergarten, or when he run in the dark into packages of human meat, or when he was carrying Sania in the forest belt where snow had a smell of the corpses of Ukrainian soldiers who will never return home. No compassion to anyone. If he claimed at the beginning of the novel that the war did not concern him and he did not support anyone, then at the end of his journey he realized: «It was worth getting here, into the middle of hell, to feel how much you`ve had and how much you`ve lost. You just need to get home faster, leave this walking inside the circles of someone else's trouble, faster home, faster» [5, р. 308].
Pasha knew for sure which side of the war his home was on.