Description
Arts and culture are playing a pivotal role in the war in Ukraine. Russia's colonial aggression is predicated on trying to erase Ukraine as a collective identity, and in the process Russia is systematically targeting, destroying or stealing artistic and cultural expressions of this identity (Mälksoo 2023). Yet, as perhaps an evitable consequence of this violence, arts and culture have also become critical sites of resistance (RES-POL 2025). This paper traces three modalities of creative resistance in Ukraine. The first is the arts as therapeutic practices which helps communities respond to the war and become more resilient to its enduring effects. The second is as a decolonial reckoning as the arts both look to purge the legacies of colonial extraction and oppression and create a new image of peace and of a ‘free Ukraine’. The final way is through the mobilisation of culture as an explicit tool of warfare through the creation of ‘Cultural Forces’ brigade within the Ukrainian army. This brigade uses arts and culture the help sustain soldiers and civilians fighting and living across the front line. Beyond empirical significance, exploring these three modalities also looks to further expand arts in conflict research, which has focused on concepts more closely aligned with peace and peacebuilding (reconciliation) than resistance.
