The hero archetype and the semiotics of liberation struggle in Oles Sanin’s film “Dovbush”: Between historical allusion and visual narrative

The actualisation of the image of the national hero in times of war, under conditions of informational pressure and cultural decolonisation, is one of the key challenges for contemporary Ukrainian visual culture. The aim of this study was to conduct an interdisciplinary analysis of Oles Sanin’s film “Dovbush” as a cultural text, in which new models of heroism were shaped through semiotic, aesthetic, and mythological means. Cinema increasingly functions as an instrument in the formation of collective identity, where the figure of the hero acquired significance not only as an artistic image, but also as an archetypal marker of historical transformation. The article traced, how the film’s visual language created a complex system of signs and symbols, in particular: the hero’s body, blood, earth, the cross, water, and the Carpathian landscape were presented not merely as elements of artistic composition, but as bearers of traumatic experience, collective memory, and ritual structures. The Carpathian space in the film appeared not as a picturesque backdrop, but as a sacred chronotope, shaping the spiritual topography of the narrative and acting as an active participant in the hero’s ritual transformation. It was revealed that the film’s structure followed the ritual logic of initiation: betrayal, flight, dedication, sacrifice, death, and resurrection, forming a sacred formula of the narrative of resistance. The image of Oleksa Dovbush emerged as an archetypal figure of the leader, integrating the motifs of avenger, martyr, and cultural mediator between the trauma of the past and the nation-building perspective of the present. The study also included a comparative analysis of the film with other examples of Ukrainian historical cinema, which made it possible to discern a shared patterned model in the formation of the visual narrative of national resistance. Particular attention was paid to the figure of the woman in the film as the bearer of sacred knowledge and collective intuition. The film’s public reception confirmed its status as a national screen myth. The practical value of the research lies in the proposed model of film analysis as a ritual narrative, which may be applied in the fields of cultural studies, film analysis, memory studies, and the study of national identity in wartime conditions