ABSTRACT
War means a fundamental break in personal and societal timelines. At first, the future becomes threatened because human beings cease to control even their physical existence. It is also a time of radical openness when people learn to anticipate the most diverse scenarios, and each new development can overturn previous experiences and expectations. Then, slowly, the past is lost: it hurts too much; it is too far away. War becomes an overwhelming present, a moment-in-making that grows both in the past and in the future. In Ukraine, it became the “frozen February 24th.” This chapter builds on the narratives of people who shared their testimonies after the full-scale Russian invasion within the “24/02/22, 5 am” documentation initiative. It shows that people lost their ability to navigate between the past, present, and future because Russian aggression destroyed the integrity of the timeline, which is not usually questioned. It also argues that, despite the war creating a temporal rupture, people in Ukraine are developing coping strategies. They do so (a) by sustaining an “extreme routine” that aims for survival and victory and (b) through a new system of connections that goes beyond linear chronology and links Ukrainian resistance to the categories of justice and the universal fight for good against evil.
