The horrific in the sociocultural syntheses of the early modern era: epidemics, wars, and technological creativity as a challenge to humanity

Urgency of the research. Contemporary Ukrainian society is confronting several large-scale challenges simultaneously—pandemic, war, and the accelerated advance of technology spurred by these crises. Together they are radically reshaping the cultural and social landscape of life in Ukraine. The phenomenon of the horrific, despite its evident destructive potential, is fundamentally ambivalent. The experience of the horrific (epidemics, war, technological progress) in the Early Modern era has renewed relevance in light of the global challenges posed by COVID-19, the proliferation of information crises, and rapid technological development, particularly in artificial intelligence (AI).

Target setting. To carry out a philosophical-anthropological analysis of the phenomenon of the horrific as a constitutive component of the sociocultural transformations of contemporary Ukrainian society amid war, pandemic, and accelerated technological development—taking into account the historical experience of the Early Modern period, when wars, epidemics, and technological innovations set the trajectory of European societies.

Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. Recent years have seen a growing interest in cultural representations of fear and the horrific (R. Hutton, J. Kristeva, Yu. Abashnik, et al.), which offer heuristic analogies for examining the pandemic as a catalyst of sociocultural change (S. Galloway, F. Zakaria, M. Honigsbaum, et al.) and invite a revision of the “horrific” as a politics of the destruction of meaning (V. Ageieva, M. Boichenko, Ye. Bystrytskyi, S. Proleiev, et al.).

The research objective. To analyze the ambivalence of the horrific as a source of destruction and cultural-technological progress in Early Modern Europe.

Main material presentation. The Thirty Years’ War, religious conflicts, epidemics, and famine were the principal forces shaping the collective experience of the horrific in the Early Modern era. Despite significant sociocultural advances, the present reproduces similar responses to pandemics, wars, and technological and climatic threats. The parallel drawn between the Early Modern period and contemporary Ukrainian reality—whose internal logic is compounded by pandemic and war—demonstrates that the horrific is a structural constant of human existence.

Conclusions. In the historical-cultural context of the Early Modern era, the persistent sense of dread that characterizes contemporary life emerges more clearly as a structural, organizing principle of experience and behavior. Exploring the constructive potential of the horrific may help forecast pathways for integrating technologies into social life, facilitate the productive mobilization of intellectual and technical resources, and provide a basis for evaluating the effectiveness of policies in social support, culture, and education.