Doświadczenia wojenne w narracjach żołnierek Armii Czerwonej a trudności z rozwiązywaniem kryzysów rozwojowych

This paper is a psychological analysis of the experiences of former Red Army female soldiers fighting in the World War II. The empirical material includes the narratives of 150 female soldiers collected by Svetlana Alexievich in her book “War’s Unwomanly Face” (2015). The book contains the interviews conducted 40 years after the World War II by the author, who talked to the female soldiers from different former Soviet Republics. The analysis of the narratives was based on the developmental psychology life span paradigm and applying the concept of experience structuring and restructuring by Maria Tyszkowa (1988), as well as the psychosocial development theory by Eric Erikson (1997). The most important war and post-war experiences were listed and defined with reference to the narratives analysed and subsequently each experience was evaluated in cognitive, emotional and evaluational terms according to the theory of M. Tyszkowa. The criteria listed above showed to what extent the war and post-war experiences of the female soldiers enriched them in cognitive terms, what was their emotional impact and how they can be evaluated as useful in terms of values that are of greatest importance for these women. The analysis allowed to compare the war and post-war experiences and to find which of them and to what extent influenced the developmental changes taking place in the course of their life. It was concluded that the experience of being a soldier had greater impact on these changes than finding the path in the post-war reality. The impact of the war experiences was very strong, it extended their self-knowledge and influenced the way in which these female soldiers perceived the world. It speeded up significantly their process of growing-up and becoming mature. The post-war experiences of these women, such as the criticism for being soldiers or excluding them from the celebrations of the Red Army’s victory, had a destructive impact on their development and resulted in feeling guilty for being forced to kill during the war. Social rejection was a factor that hindered these women in successfully overcoming their developmental crises. They showed courage and bravery during the war, but in the post-war reality became insecure, withdrawn and lacked confidence, as they lost their sense of agency.