The Value of Self-Sacrifice in the Collective Experience of the War as a Limit Situation

Abstract

Purpose. The main purpose of the article is to conceptualize self-sacrifice as a collective cultural phenomenon that emerges under wartime conditions. It aims to clarify how the experience of existential threat influences the values that strengthen national identity and shape moral solidarity. Particular attention is given to the role of self-sacrifice as the community’s existential response to the challenges of war – both as a reaction to danger and as a mechanism for symbolically ordering the experience of mortality. Theoretical basis. The research is based on Karl Jaspers’s philosophical concept of the limit situation and Martin Heidegger’s idea of being-toward-death. It also takes into account the intersubjective interpretation of Dasein and its constitutive being-with, which acquires special significance amid radical rupture. In this context, the assumptions of terror management theory are particularly relevant, emphasizing the increasing importance of sacred values and the heightened awareness of self-sacrifice among citizens following the onset of full-scale war. Interdisciplinary approaches to the phenomenon of heroism – developed in the works of Ernest Becker, Joseph Campbell, and other scholars – are also considered, as they help to elucidate the mechanisms of value-based identification under conditions of existential threat. Originality. The study proposes an interpretation of self-sacrifice not as an exceptional heroic act but as an element of a cultural model that stabilizes the community in times of crisis. It argues that symbolic actions associated with sacrifice can perform a structuring function – shaping moral orientations, sustaining identity, and preserving meaning even amid collective disintegration. Conclusions. In the limit situations of war, self-sacrifice acquires sacred significance as a mode of both individual and collective response to the experience of mortality. It becomes institutionalized in public space, embodied in narratives of memory, cultural practices, and symbolic gestures, thereby serving as a means of affirming shared subjectivity in the face of threat. The article illustrates how a nation can transform the fear of death into a source of cohesion through the moral recognition of self-sacrifice.