Transformation of the Hero Image in Visual Practices in the Ukrainian Culture under the Influence of the Russian-Ukrainian War

The aim of the article is to study the influence of the russian-Ukrainian war on the formation of heroic neomyth and representation with the help of visual practices of a hero image with which the processes of constructing national identity associate today. Results. In conditions of the russian-Ukrainian war, symbolic eclecticism, the increasing role of the “media-visual language” and the media blurring of traditional ideas about heroic issues, it can be noticed, that now in Ukraine there is a rejection of heroisation of the past and the formation of a new heroic neomyth which is reinforced by the national and cultural interpretation of heroic in the country media space, and is constructed on the basis of real heroic deeds, mostly of the Ukrainian military. Scientific novelty of the obtained results grounds on the fact that for the first time peculiarities of visualisation of modern heroes in the context of the russian-Ukrainian war are revealed. Conclusions. It is emphasised that the culturological understanding of this issue predicts that the attention of visual practices creators concentrate more not on cultural heroes but on charismatic real people who do not simply fit into the heroic narratives of modern Ukrainian culture, but they are their own co-creators like were the Cossacks, OUN-UPA fighters, et al. Visualisation of the heroic images with using different means (murals, photos, drawings, memes, movies, advertisements, etc.) clearly underline that on the top of the new pantheon of Ukrainian heroes are the Armed Forces of Ukraine, soldiers-defenders who are descendants of the glorious ancestors of the Kyiv Rus times, the Cossacks times and the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921. It is grounded that visualisation of the heroic at the current stage of the russian-Ukrainian war reveals and represents the contradiction of “hero – anti-hero”: a powerful metaphor and a strong image of the Ukrainian hero is the image of Cyborg, while the anti-hero is the russian soldier, who commits evil and outrages in Bucha, Izium, Mariupol and other cities of Ukraine.