The Ukrainian poet and corporal Yaryna Chornohuz, between words and weapons

In Ukraine, many artists have joined arms in hand in the defense of the country, while soldiers try their hand at art in their spare time, playing music or writing poems. Mixing art with war is an ancestral tradition, and is seen as an existential necessity at a time when the country is trying to forge a national, cultural, linguistic identity, in the face of military aggression from a Russia with identity ambitions. and imperial.

During wartime, everyone tries to find their way. Perhaps the most famous Ukrainian artist in the world before the war, filmmaker Oleh Sentsov, became a seasoned fighter and disappeared from the world of cinema. Writers Serhiy Jadan and Artem Chekh combine combat in the army and writing. Rock singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk, stage name Boombox, alternates between serving in a police combat unit and fundraising tours abroad, while pop singer Mikolai Sierga has found a way to live both lives at the same time, by creating, within the armed forces, a “Cultural Forces” unit which hosts music and poetry evenings near the fronts.

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