Ukrainian Women and War: A Jungian Perspective

War is a tremendous and tragic experience. It is naturally easy to associate it with the world of men. But the trends in today’s military show that more and more women are joining its ranks, especially when it becomes necessary to defend their homeland and their children.

Jung wrote that the unconscious, as a set of archetypes, is the sediment of all that has been experienced by mankind down to its darkest beginnings. He viewed it as a living system of reactions and dispositions, which invisibly, and therefore more effectively, determines our individual lives.

War, as an archetypal event, activates many archetypes within us, which are filled with experiences of previous generations. The main one is the Warrior archetype and it has two aspects or components – the Invader and the Defender. The Defender aspect seems to be more natural for and actualized in women. We will examine the archetypes of the Cossack woman (Amazonas), the Molfarka (female mage), and Sophia (wisdom) as they appear among contemporary women warriors.