Internet memes with religious characters as weapon: the experience of Ukrainians during the war

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to identify the place of a new phenomenon in the understanding of the events of the modern war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine – Internet memes with religious characters, outlining their significance for resistance to the military and information aggression of the enemy. For this purpose, the content of such Internet memes, which has been distributed in the Ukrainian sector of the Global Network and beyond in recent years, was analyzed. As a result of the corresponding analysis, the main characteristic features of Internet memes with religious heroes were identified: appeal to characters from different religious systems, synthesis and cross-cultural connections of plots. It is shown that Christian characters are most often involved in Internet memes (Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, Saint Nicholas, Archangel Michael, Saints Olga and Volodymyr, etc.), and pagan ones are also found (Perun, etc.). Scientific novelty of the study: bold innovations were discovered in the interpretation of Christian characters who help Ukrainians in their resistance to the enemy: Christ in a bulletproof vest and camouflage goes to help our soldiers, the Virgin Mary covers Ukrainian soldiers and the whole Ukraine with her Protection, Saint Olga takes up a javelin, and even a “saint Javelina” appears. Innovation in Internet memes also concerns the rethinking of the responsibility of Ukrainians in their interaction with saints: now not only does Saint Nicholas protect children from Russian missiles, but also a Ukrainian soldier takes care of this saint who arrived with gifts. It was determined that in military Internet memes there may be a mix of Ukrainian plots with religious characters and plots from secular cultural products of the Euro-Atlantic circle. The conclusions were drawn that Internet memes with religious characters are popular as an effective weapon in information warfare and as a means of maintaining stress resistance of Ukrainians.