--- title: Ukrainians Are Defending Their History, Art, and Culture description: As Ukraine battles Russia’s military, its people are fighting with vigor against a cultural assault, writes Suzanne Nossel canonical: https://time.com/6244839/ukrainians-defending-their-history-thought-art-culture/ author: Suzanne Nossel article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-01-06T17:14:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:05:59.682Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Ukrainians Are Defending Their History, Thought, and Art og:description: As Ukraine battles Russia’s military, its people are fighting with vigor against a cultural assault og:url: https://time.com/6244839/ukrainians-defending-their-history-thought-art-culture/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7dbfdf374b5c52dd/698a3944011682a1e0982a51/GettyImages-1245924581.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Daily Life In Dnipro og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ukrainians Are Defending Their History, Thought, and Art twitter:description: As Ukraine battles Russia’s military, its people are fighting with vigor against a cultural assault twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7dbfdf374b5c52dd/698a3944011682a1e0982a51/GettyImages-1245924581.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Ukrainians Are Defending Their History, Thought, Art, and Culture, Too > Sponsored content. 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As Ukraine battles Russia’s military, its people are fighting with vigor against a cultural assault, writes Suzanne Nossel_ by [Suzanne Nossel](https://time.com/author/suzanne-nossel/) ## Suzanne Nossel Jan 6, 2023 5:14 PM UTC by [Suzanne Nossel](https://time.com/author/suzanne-nossel/) ## Suzanne Nossel Jan 6, 2023 5:14 PM UTC Late on a Friday afternoon in early December, a lively crowd gathered in Kyiv’s Ukraine House, a cultural hub, to mark the opening of “The World of Skovoroda,” an exhibition dedicated to the country’s venerated 18th century philosopher, credited as the originator of modern Ukrainian culture. The show launched as Russian missiles bore down on the electrical grid, causing blackouts that made short, cold days darker and icier. The exhibit features mounted panels that glow in the dark, even when the electricity is out, and a 3-D rendering of the village of Skovorodynivka in Kharkiv where a museum devoted to Skovoroda stood until it was destroyed last May by Russian shelling. The exhibit’s centerpiece is a salvaged statue of the stage, its surface scarred and pockmarked in the bombing, but its structure and stature left miraculously intact. As Ukraine battles Russia’s military, its people are fighting with vigor against a cultural assault, determined that their arts, letters, and cosmopolitan life will withstand the onslaught. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s armed invasion has been met with unexpectedly potent military resistance. In parallel, his effort to erase Ukraine’s distinct culture has provoked a firm rebuke on behalf of the country’s history, thought, art and culture. Erasing Ukraine’s culture was at the heart of Putin’s war, both his motivation and a means of subjugation. In a televised address launching the war, Putin denied that Ukraine had ever enjoyed “real statehood” and claimed the country as part of Russia’s “own history, culture, spiritual space.” A PEN America and PEN Ukraine report, [_Ukrainian Culture Under Attack_](https://pen.org/report/ukrainian-culture-under-attack/), documents how the country’s museums, libraries, statues and icons have not merely been caught in the crossfire, but deliberately destroyed. Libraries and performance venues lie in ruins. Museums have been looted and stripped bare. As of mid-November more than 529 cultural sites had been damaged or demolished. The fight over culture is not simply a matter of preserving riches from the past, but a battle for the present and future. Following a playbook used after the 2014 occupations of Crimea and other provinces, in territories newly captured by Russian forces, Ukrainian-language library books have been removed, teachers fired and schools forced to begin teaching in Russian. An orchestra leader, who refused to take part in a concert in occupied Kherson, was summarily murdered. Marjana Varchuk, a director at a Kyiv museum damaged in early October told PEN: “Destroying our culture is the purpose of everything the Russians are doing. Culture and language strengthen our nation, they remind us of our history. That’s why the Russians are shelling our monuments, our museums, and our history. That’s what they’re fighting with.” Alongside his military miscalculations, Putin appears not to have grasped that hitting Ukraine’s culture would instead fuel its vitality. A large portion of Ukrainians traditionally spoke Russian, but there is now a defiant push to popularize the Ukrainian language. Authors who once published novels and poems in Russian have proudly switched linguistic gears. In a half-destroyed library in the town of Chernihiv, women gather on Saturday mornings with a tutor to brush up their Ukrainian, wanting to overcome the impulse to revert to Russian, once their mother tongue. Newly passed laws require all Russian publications to be translated. Newsstands must offer at least half of their materials in Ukrainian. Even as the city endures rolling blackouts, Kyiv hosts nightly classical music performances, including a version of La Traviata set in wartime. Concert halls and theaters are sold out. A museum exhibition focused on food will open in the coming weeks, taking on added poignancy given how the war has threatened Ukraine’s role in global grain supplies. Author talks and book events are convened in bomb shelters. The restaurant of Ukraine’s most famous celebrity chef Ivegen Klopotenko is filled to capacity on Saturday nights and pastry chefs are concocting desserts shaped to look like tank barricades. Stylish Ukrainian women are turning embroidered peasant garb and babushkas into fashion statements. In Bucha, the site of mass killings and torture during six weeks of Russian occupation last spring, a cathedral, the grounds of which became a mass grave, now hosts a photo exhibit including images of the bodies left on the town’s curbs and sidewalks. A nearby plasma screen shows renderings of an architecturally ambitious memorial that residents hope to build on the site. Ukraine’s cultural surge is making itself felt globally. Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts will soon host a Ukrainian visual art exhibition. Ukrainian writers are favorites at literary festivals and Ukrainian poets say it has never been easier to get their work published in translation. The funeral of children’s book writer [Volodymyr Vakulenko](https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/blog/essay/signs-ethnic-and-cultural-genocide-ukraine-murder-childrens-book-writer-volodymyr) became the occasion for a literary show of force, with writers traveling more than six hours from Kyiv to stand alongside his family and neighbors. Vakulenko was kidnapped by the Russians in March and identified in November after his body was found in a shallow mass grave in Kharkiv. [A diary](https://worldcrunch.com/focus/volodymyr-vakulenko-ukrainian-writer-diary) he kept of his ordeal has been discovered and editors and publishers are working to bring his and other first-hand accounts to publication. The country’s cultural upswell is powered in part by a government that understands how pop culture, advertising, imagery and social media can rally the people. The military’s short videos, set to music, have helped foster faith in the national defense. A local fashion house has adopted the slogan “Bravery Is Ukraine’s Brand,” brandishing it with a trademark sky blue and bright yellow background in storefronts. As President Volodymyr Zelensky implores Ukrainians to shelter and endure what will be a punishing winter, cultural pride and identity are proving life-sustaining. Ukraine’s cultural combatants are patriotic, but not blindly so. Writers and filmmakers have mobilized to oppose the Zelensky government’s attempts to commandeer a beloved Kyiv film archive. Directors, film critics and move buffs are protesting the Culture Ministry’s appointment of manager with no experience in the film sector.. Like its soldiers, Ukraine’s culture warriors are scrappy and determined. But just as on the battlefield, their energy and pluck will need to be augmented by sustained assistance to safeguard the cultural wealth they are fighting to preserve. The fate of Ukraine as an independent democracy will be decided on the battlefield and perhaps ultimately at a negotiating table. But its trajectory as a vibrant, flourishing society will be shaped by the books, art, music, thought, narratives and institutions that nourish and help to heal a people beleaguered but unbowed. _Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, recently returned from Ukraine where she led a delegation of American writers to witness the destruction of cultural infrastructure_. ## Transcript Ukrainian flag on a flying in the city of Carson of the Russian troops withdrew from the airplanes president, made a surprise visit to her song, the largest city retaken today from Russia, in the beginning or the end of the war. I was able to join president selenski on a trip to your phone. You wanted to get there as fast as possible is security, were dead set against it. They told him, please don't go there at least. Wait, so that the mind-clearing teams can go through Russian Artillery, can very easily strike. It was extremely dangerous knowledge that and he said I still need to go. The situation on the ground is painful and tragic, but I think a lot of the covers misses is the positivity. And in the resilience that Ukrainian show even when there's a blackout, even when their missile strikes, people continue to try to go about their daily lives. Not get into the fair, not given to the depression to keep living. My name is Simon Schuster. I'm a correspondent for Time Magazine and I've been covering Russia and Ukraine for about 15 years. I've experienced the war inside the presidential bubble to a large extent because of my previous relationships with with the president is team. They've been super generous in letting me be a fly on the wall. The photographer who work with me on the story. Might seem Duke, I've known him for many years, is a dear old friend of mine. We met during the revolution in Ukraine. In 2014. Did you ask ukrainians if they'll tell you this war has been going on for a year is not fundamentally new. But what happened in? February is a much larger scale, much more violent, much more horrifying. I have no dream about to be War photographer for creeping in my country more than 8 years ago. I should to cover this and work with magazine, spreads of tools, real situation, and try to fight against the Russian propaganda in the world. I am really proud to be grainy On In This Moment. I started reporting on presidents Wednesday before he was president. His career before. He went into politics in 2019, was as a comedian movie producer and actor. He made fun of the politicians that you ended up replacing. Virginia ever seen your dream, came to power, promising to be from outside the system. Not corrupted by the oligarchs. The wealthy and self-serving Elites, that's how he defines himself as one of the main reasons why his campaign was successful. And I think many people voted because they believed that the president that they saw in that TV show would be the president. This is when she would become Things are more complicated. What is a wartime leader? I think. President zelensky is surprised everybody consistently. What his advisers have told me since the beginning of the invasion is that he lets the general do the fighting and he focuses on what he is good at, which is communication, grabbing the attention of the world and not allowing the world to turn away to make sure that the West, the US Europeans, actively support Ukraine with weapons supplies, with financial aid, with political support. Also inspiring the public with speeches, story. He's always on line is always filming videos, posting videos and the way that he's been able to communicate, not only with his people, but the people around the world or we're watching this war is is unique to history. And I think that's been a very powerful tool friend when you get a minute. This was his decision to stay in key of throughout. The invasion has been so important because it was very hard morally politically personally, for anyone else in the structure of the state, ministers, government officials to leave because of the bosses there. I think it was Wednesday to run away, it's it's fair to say that there would be a much higher chance that the state structure of Ukraine. Ukraine is a, the country is, is a state that the government would collapse. Show The Country Inn. And I think many around the world. That key is not scared. There's no reason to fear this. This Invader that that Ukraine can win that, it will win that inspired. A lot of people in inside the country and outside to stand up and help fight this war. Ukrainians generally hold, they're worried about the future inside people say, just give it a couple more months and we'll have our Victory. They certainly expressed that belief all the time but it's it's a it's a scary time. This strategy that Russia is pursuing of bombing and freezing the country into submission is very scary Ukraine's Capital again I talked to you in Ukraine, aren't sure how they're going to get through that but if asked and do you think the victory is around the corner? They say yes. We're definitely going to win and and victory is coming. I think everybody up, right? I just don't believe it's a photographer or Soldier. Save me, I'm not afraid to try to fight because we fight for our phone. We don't have any choice. When I talked about the role in history with the landscape was on a train coming back from hair salon, he said it's too early to judge my role in history. I'm not done yet. I still need to finish this thing for the country and I think they wasn't really just the war. He meant, he wants to finish this kind of cycle of Oppression and subjugation that Russia has pursued for Generations. He doesn't want to, just have a temporary truce or an Armistice that allows Russia can rearm and retrench and cry. Again, really wants to break the cycle. So the Russians ever attack c-crane again. So that it remains a free independent and sovereign country. That's how he sees his role in history. And and what he wants to do, if not, just kind of set them to go, see a shins that leads to a cease-fire. It's the breaking of a historical cycle of Oppression that's been going on since before he was alive. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6244839/ukrainians-defending-their-history-thought-art-culture/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6244839/ukrainians-defending-their-history-thought-art-culture/"},"headline":"Ukrainians Are Defending Their History, Thought, Art, and Culture, Too","datePublished":"2023-01-06T17:14:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-19T07:05:59.682Z","description":"As Ukraine battles Russia’s military, its people are fighting with vigor against a cultural assault, writes Suzanne Nossel","url":"https://time.com/6244839/ukrainians-defending-their-history-thought-art-culture/","keywords":["Ukraine","freelance"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7dbfdf374b5c52dd/698a3944011682a1e0982a51/GettyImages-1245924581.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Suzanne Nossel","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/suzanne-nossel/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7dbfdf374b5c52dd/698a3944011682a1e0982a51/GettyImages-1245924581.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Daily Life In Dnipro","caption":"Daily Life In Dnipro","creditText":"Pierre Crom-Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/ukraine/","name":"Ukraine"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/6244839/ukrainians-defending-their-history-thought-art-culture/","name":"Ukrainians Are Defending Their History, Thought, Art, and Culture, Too"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME Person of the Year 2022: Volodymyr Zelensky & The Spirit of Ukraine","description":"As Ukraine battles Russia’s military, its people are fighting with vigor against a cultural assault, writes Suzanne Nossel","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/zyzgfN0f/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2022-12-07T12:00:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zyzgfN0f.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/6244839/ukrainians-defending-their-history-thought-art-culture/","duration":"PT6M56S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/6244839/ukrainians-defending-their-history-thought-art-culture/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```