Cultural life in Ukraine: Between airstrikes and songs

Cultural life in Ukraine: Between airstrikes and songs

Olha Mesheryakova doesn't know what the next year will bring for her, her family or her business in Ukraine's war-torn capital. Nevertheless, she is confident that in 2025 she will take part in a dozen performances in Kiev theaters. The thought of it gives her hope.

Hope in difficult times

"It creates a certain expectation, gives some kind of structure and great support at a time when the world around me has gone crazy. I know exactly what I'm going to do on December 23rd because I already bought the tickets in the summer. Honestly, it gives me hope and belief in the future. It's a kind of magic," said Mesheryakova, an entrepreneur.

Cultural interest remains unbroken

She is by no means the only one who is passionate about the theater. To get tickets to a popular performance, she, like thousands of other Ukrainians, has to look forward to it for months.

In the middle of Kiev, on a darkened street, cars moved slowly as hundreds of people streamed toward the small, historic building of the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater, just a few hundred meters from the presidential residence.

Theater as a place of retreat

Since reopening six months after the full-scale Russian invasion began in 2022, the theater has sold out almost every day.

During this time, the theater itself, its actors and its audience have changed. The director, Yevhen Nyshchuk, served voluntarily in the military in 2022, as did many of his colleagues. All three actors who play the main roles in “Three Comrades,” an adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s postwar novel, were at the front and were only able to return to the stage a year later.

A new understanding of theater

"Remarque sounded completely different. The reality of the war, which has already affected everyone, has changed us. I felt that the audience's perception of theater has changed, that they have more appetite for it, for this exchange of energy," explained Nyshchuk.

Nyshchuk particularly noticed this change in appreciation for Remarque's works because he and his colleagues continued to serve in the armed forces. In order to be able to perform the plays, they received permission from their command to take short-term vacations.

Cultural performance despite war

Since the outbreak of war, the Ivan Franko Drama Theater has organized more than 1,500 performances, attended by over half a million spectators. Seventeen plays premiered, including “The Witch of Konotop,” a mystical piece that explores themes of love and power. Tickets sold out within minutes, and many Ukrainians have put themselves on a waiting list to get tickets when they become available.

"Thousands, tens of thousands of spectators want to be in the theater. I can't find any explanation for this," said Uryvskyi, the theater's director. Sold-out performances are now common, according to the websites and e-ticket services of most Kiev theaters.

The real encounter with reality

Uryvskyi emphasizes that not everyone comes to the theater to escape the sad reality of war. Often the opposite is the case.

"Sometimes someone needs to immerse themselves in the present and understand themselves. He or she doesn't need comedy, he or she doesn't need distraction. He or she needs serious dialogue. Maybe in theater it needs to let the emotions out," Uryvskyi explained.

Even if people want to escape the war, they often cannot, as performances are regularly interrupted by air raid sirens. The audience must leave the theater building and seek safety in the nearest subway station. If the danger passes within an hour, the performance continues. Otherwise the performance will take place on another day.

Books as a vanishing point

The number of bookstores in Ukraine has increased from 200 before the war to almost 500 now. The largest of them, Sens, opened on Kiev's main street in the middle of the war. With over 57,000 books available, the store is packed at any time of the day and has seen more than half a million customers this year. The store's events program is fully booked months in advance.

For the founder, Oleksiy Erinchak, opening such a large-scale project in wartime seemed logical. At the beginning of the war he was the owner of a small bookstore that opened on the eve of the invasion. It became a volunteer center in the early months of the conflict and grew so popular that Erinchak considered a new, larger space.

Reading as a survival aid

"A book is the most convenient way to spend time during the war, when it is impossible to predict anything. Many people have switched from Russian to Ukrainian. They are trying to understand what it means to be Ukrainian. And books help enormously in this," Erinchak said.

According to the Ukrainian Book Institute, the number of adults who read books daily doubled during the war to 16%.

"Maybe it's just the war, or the stress, and a person just hides under the covers, opens a book and travels to other worlds to escape it all. Or they don't travel to other worlds, but delve deeper to understand why this happened in our lifetime. And books actually provide a lot of answers that you can feel, understand and help you feel better," Erinchak explained.

Music as consolation

A few songs before the end of an anniversary concert this fall by one of the most famous Ukrainian bands, Okean Elzy, an airstrike was announced in Kiev.

Some of the audience went into the subway to seek shelter, accompanied by the band. There, on the subway steps, the performance continued with a loudspeaker instead of a professional sound system and only guitars - hundreds of voices sang along to every hit.

"Okean Elzy's 30th anniversary concerts reflect our history. We've been together for 30 years: at big concerts and in bunkers, in stadiums and in trenches... But it's not about the place, it's about our community," the band later posted on their Instagram account.

In the nearly three years since the all-out invasion, Okean Elzy's frontman Svyatoslav Vakarchuk has performed over 300 concerts for the military, often on the front lines. In some videos posted on the band's social media, the sounds of artillery can be heard as Vakarchuk sings to the soldiers. Okean Elzy has already donated nearly 280 million UAH (6.7 million USD) to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, according to a spokesman for the band.

Culture and resistance

The Ivan Franko Drama Theater also regularly organizes charity performances and has already raised over $1.2 million for the armed forces. It also offers its stages space for troops who have lost their theaters due to the Russian occupation or who are no longer able to perform in their theaters due to unfavorable security conditions.

The vibrant cultural life in the cities behind the front stands in stark contrast Situation in the frontline areas Ukraine, where Russia continues to make territorial gains.

Yegor Firsov, a sergeant major who has been fighting the Russians since 2022, is generally positive about an active cultural life, even if some on the front lines are fighting “in real hell.”

“When it comes to women and children, I and my comrades support the commitment,” he said. “Because people distract themselves from their stress, and in such difficult times they want to experience something real, and bookstores and theaters represent the real, the life.”

And on the rare days when Firsov manages to get from the front to Kiev, he also attends concerts.

“Culture is a part of our lives, it is about both war and leisure, because even we, soldiers, need spiritual healing, need to distract ourselves in order to remain resilient.”