Art Against Artillery: Ukrainian Artists at War

100 best books of 2025 by the literary magazine BÜCHERmagazin. When everything around is being destroyed, art becomes a form of resistance. Set against the backdrop of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, Art Against Artillery: Voices of Resilience is a work of narrative non-fiction that explores how artists, curators, musicians, writers, and cultural leaders continue to create while their country is under attack. Through fifteen in-depth interviews, Ukrainian journalist and author Olha Volynska captures voices that refuse to be silenced. These are not abstract reflections on war, but lived experiences: creating art under shelling, preserving cultural memory amid destruction, and choosing meaning over fear when survival itself is uncertain. Moving between courage and despair, loss and hope, the book reveals how culture becomes a weapon against erasure. Painting, music, theatre, literature, and visual art emerge not as decoration, but as acts of remembrance, healing, and moral resistance.