The Poetics of War Trauma and Devastation: Vera Pavlova and Zhenya Berkovich

This paper addresses the anti-war poems written by Vera Pavlova and Zhenya Berkovich during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. After a brief biographical overview, the analysis focuses on the poetics of war trauma and devastation in the era of the Russian-Ukrainian war, conducting a close textual analysis of several poems. The paper demonstrates how contrasting poetic depictions of the natural world simultaneously accentuate the human trauma and signal nostalgia for the peaceful past.