Art Against Artillery: Ukrainian Artists at War
Selected among the “100 Best Books of 2025” by BÜCHERmagazin
When weapons speak, do the muses fall silent? Quite the opposite.
This book brings together powerful conversations with Ukrainian artists across literature, music, theatre, film, painting, sculpture, and photography. Their voices reveal that, in times of war, art is not a luxury – it becomes a source of resilience and a force that preserves what is deeply human.
At the same time, the book offers a deeper historical perspective on Ukraine’s long struggle for identity, including the tragic legacy of the “Executed Renaissance” – the avant-garde generation erased under Stalin, whose fate echoes in today’s war.
Moving between courage and despair, hope and pain, the portraits created by Olha Volynska present a multi-layered view of contemporary Ukrainian art in the face of Russia’s war of destruction. The volume is complemented by numerous illustrations, including colour reproductions of artworks.
REVIEWS
“Ukrainian journalist Olha Volynska is an absolute stroke of luck for the German-language book market. Hardly any other author is able to convey, with comparable empathy, the emotional world of Ukrainians in this terrible war so powerfully. Anyone who is genuinely interested in the lives of Ukrainians should read this book. It is a valuable contribution to understanding what this war means for the people of the country – and it offers hope that this world, this cultural space, this identity will endure beyond the war and emerge strengthened from it.”
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