Lexical features of Yevheniia Kuznietsova’s novel “The sheep are safe”

Abstract

Since 2014, Ukrainian literature has been shaped by the Russian-Ukrainian war, which has become the central theme of many works, both documentary and fictional. At the same time, writers also address the lives of civilians in the country under martial law. One such work is the novel “The Sheep are Safe” by the well-known writer and translator Yevheniia Kuznietsova, published by Vydavnytstvo Staroho Leva in 2025. The aim of this article is to examine the specific features of the lexicon in the novel “The Sheep are Safe” by the modern Ukrainian writer Yе. Kuznietsova. The article analyzes the lexical composition of Yevheniia Kuznietsova’s novel “The Sheep are Safe”, distinguishing the standard literary language of a Kyiv family and its social circle, elements of folk ritual vocabulary used during Christmas celebrations, as well as the interference-influenced speech of a resident of the Kyiv region. It also considers foreign borrowings, predominantly anglicisms, present in the text. Special attention is paid to how the novel reflects changes in the attitudes of the Kyiv intelligentsia toward Russian literature following the outbreak of the full-scale war with Russia. The novel consists of seven chapters, whose titles reflect the chronological sequence of Christmas holidays: “Romana,” “Kateryna,” “Andrii,” “Mykolai,” “Christmas Eve,” “Malanka,” and “Jordan”. The work portrays the realities of everyday life of Ukrainians under martial law, with the constant threat of enemy shelling, air raid alerts, and blackouts. It has been established that a marker of changes in the country’s linguistic situation is the fairly large group of borrowings from English present both in the author’s narration and in the speech of the characters. English loanwords dominate the lexical composition of the novel, reflecting the actual state of the contemporary linguistic landscape. The study concludes that the depiction of traditional folk customs of Christmas celebration alongside the realities of a modern, technologically advanced society integrates traditional Ukrainian culture into the context of an open contemporary society with diverse international contacts that extend beyond the national sphere. Keywords: Christmas traditions, interfered speech, digital technologies, anglicisms, Instagram, lexical features.