The article is dedicated to the issues considered during the international conference “The motive of the disease in the history of literature and culture of post-totalitarian states of Central and Eastern Europe”, which took place on November 6, 2020. The main topics of the speakers were focused on the disease as a weakness in the literature, the trauma of loss, the theme of illness and healing in world literature from its beginning to the present, including the periods of Kyiv Rus, Renaissance, Baroque and Modernism and the traumatic experience in the narratives of the Holodomor, Ukrainian women’s prose and the ability of Ukrainian sacred and decorative, as well as modern women’s art to visualize the disease and help artists overcome their injuries.