Academic Scientific JournalsThe Semiotics of Wartime Kharkiv in Ukrainian Video Games
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26881/ehgs.2026.1.02Keywords:
Kharkiv, Ukraine, urban semiotics, video games, warAbstract
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ukrainian developers made many video games covering this topic, often as a method of telling their stories and experiences. One of the elements shown in those games consists of Ukrainian cities, such as Kyiv or Kharkiv. Images of them, consisting of signs, symbolism, and meanings, can be discussed through semiotics. Semiotics is a common method of studying different aspects of culture: literature, music, film, religion, etc. One type of semiotics is semiotics of the city or urban semiotics, which explores the general image of the city using different cultural elements that together create a system of meanings. Recently, semiotics as a branch of scholarship has been applied to video games. Using this method, this article discusses the image of wartime Kharkiv in three selected Ukrainian video games, created by authors affected by the Russian invasion: What’s up in a Kharkiv Bomb Shelter?, Kharkiv, 23 of August, and TwentySecond: Stories of Underground Kharkiv. In these games, Kharkiv is shown in different ways and via different elements, like iconic signs, passages of dialog, language, or sound. The ongoing war is a common element in all of them.
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