War does not revive culture – it sharpens its responses and exposes inner strength. Ukrainian art today is a form of survival and resistance, a way of reclaiming a powerful, authentic voice.
In the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion alone, Ukraine implemented more than 2,500 cultural projects abroad. Throughout all four years of the full-scale war, Ukraine has been represented at the world’s leading book fairs and has taken part in major international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale.
In March 2024, Ukraine won its first-ever Academy Award: 20 Days in Mariupol, directed by Mstyslav Chernov. In 2025, with the support of international partners, the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Foundation was finally established.
But can we truly speak of a cultural renaissance during wartime?
In my view, the poet, writer, scholar, volunteer, and wife of a serviceman Halyna Kruk offers a more accurate – and more unsettling – metaphor. When the human body is wounded, it activates recovery mechanisms: cells begin to grow rapidly, sometimes abnormally. Culture behaves in much the same way under existential threat.
Ukrainian culture today is not being reborn – it is reacting.
The vitality we have witnessed over twelve years of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and especially during four years of full-scale invasion, is the result of trauma. It is an attempt to survive, to preserve identity, to resist erasure – and at the same time to reveal charisma, deep roots, and a powerful artistic polyphony. War, as a limit experience, produces exceptionally intense and honest cultural expression.
What for decades remained in the shadow of Russian and Soviet imperial culture – or was falsely considered part of it – is finally being named and seen. A measure of historical justice is being restored.
During the full-scale war, Ukrainian writers have moved to the center of the international literary conversation. The world is closely reading texts about the war – poetry, essays, and reportage.
Between 2022 and 2025, international awards were received by Serhiy Zhadan, Andrey Kurkov, and Oksana Zabuzhko, as well as by a younger generation of authors working in documentary prose. Posthumous international recognition was given to Victoria Amelina, Volodymyr Vakulenko, and Maksym Kryvtsov.
This is not a literary fashion for war – it is a need to hear voices speaking from within a European catastrophe.
Ukrainian culture today is embodied in the wounded angels of Matviy Vaisberg and Anton Lohov; in the prayer frozen in stone and wood by Oleksandr Zhyvotkov; in the art books of Sergiy Maidukov and the posters of Nikita Titov; in the horizons and roads of Ganna Kryvolap; in the personal Kyiv diaries of Olena Pryduvalova and Olga Morozova; in the sculpture of Lviv-based artist Volodymyr Tsisaryk; and in the words written by Gamlet Zinkivskyi on the reinforced-concrete walls of Kharkiv.
Ukrainian culture is being tempered through the diverse creativity of tens of thousands of known and unknown artists.
Ukrainian theater during the war has become a space for collective reflection and honest conversation. The greatest demand is for productions that directly engage with the experience of war, occupation, loss, and identity – as well as, paradoxically, comedies and musicals as forms of psychological defense.
Documentary texts, new drama, reinterpretations of classics, and eyewitness testimony shape a repertoire that avoids pathos and manipulation. What resonates with audiences inside the country and abroad is not the aestheticization of trauma, but sincerity – and the possibility of catharsis through truth.
Ukrainian classical music is sounding ever more confident, both at home and on international stages. Works by Valentyn Sylvestrov, Hanna Havrylets, Bohdana Frolyak, Victoria Poleva, Yevhen Stankovych, Oleksandr Rodin, and Zoltan Almashi are shaping the perception of Ukraine as an independent cultural force.
The world has yet to fully discover Ukrainian ballet, but its potential for a dignified international presence is undeniable.
Over these four years of full-scale war, a process of spiritual de-occupation has intensified. Russian cultural expansion lasted for centuries and did not cease during the 35 years of Ukraine’s restored independence.
For twelve years, in temporarily occupied territories, the aggressor has systematically destroyed Ukrainian culture: mining heritage sites, shelling churches, looting museums and libraries, burning books and textbooks. The destruction of cultural heritage always accompanies physical destruction and serves a single purpose – the moral and physical erasure of Ukrainians. This confirms the genocidal nature of the war.
One would hope that the civilized world, if it wishes to remain civilized, will find the courage to call things by their proper names.
Over four years of Russia’s full-scale war, culture on Ukraine’s free territories and abroad has become Ukraine’s powerful voice and a channel of truthful information.
Of course, once a just peace is achieved, a true cultural renaissance will follow. For now, one fact is undeniable: Ukrainian muses have not fallen silent for a single moment during Russia’s brutal aggression against Ukrainians – an aggression that this severe winter has also turned into a deliberate campaign of freezing civilian life. Ukrainian creatives speak, write, perform, testify, and offer warmth – for the sake of memory, dignity, and future victory – under the protection of Ukrainian soldiers. Among them are many artists who set aside a baton, a bow, or a brush to take up arms.
We must remember this.