Dmytro Zaiets

The study examines the staff office management of the Defense Forces of Ukraine as a social practice that transforms a mobilized civilian into a military serviceman. Based on M. Foucault's concept of pastoral power, the theory of the gift, and the concept of habitus, the order is analyzed not primarily as an instrument for achieving an outcome but as a ritual of obedience: its creation, approval, and execution function similarly to monastic cooperation — spiritual labor aimed at the "salvation of the nation." The empirical basis will consist of an autoethnography of service in a training unit, in-depth interviews with staff executors and veterans, and a discourse analysis of army folklore about the "paper army." The research addresses three questions: (1) how clerical discipline shapes the body and subjectivity of a staff employee; (2) what techniques ensure the acceptance or rejection of the "religious" interpretation of service; and (3) how the order materializes a reciprocal exchange of gifts between the state and the military. The expected result is a model of subjectivation in wartime bureaucratic institutions, with implications for the reform of military management, command-personnel communication, and veteran reintegration policies in postwar Ukraine.