The war in Ukraine is the real culture war

KYIV, Ukraine - In the thousand-year-old Cathedral of Saint Sophia, standing on an easel in front of a towering gilded Baroque altar, is a freshly painted new icon that is just a square foot.< /p>

It depicts a 17th century Cossack military commander with a long gray beard. His eyebrows are arched. Its halo is a solid red circle. It looks humble beneath the huge mosaics that have shimmered since the 11th century - through the Mongols' sacking of Kyiv, its absorption by Poland, its domination by the Soviet Union.

No or. No gemstones. This icon was painted on three planks of gnarled wood: the planks, I learn, of an ammunition crate salvaged from the devastated suburb of Bucha in Kyiv. From the mass graves of Bucha, following the terrifying Russian atrocities against civilians, something new came to Hagia Sophia: an image of mourning and resolution, of horror and courage, of a culture that won't give up.

< figure class="img-sz-medium css-1l3p632 e1g7ppur0" aria-label="media" role="group">ImageA new icon in Saint Sophia's Cathedral in kyiv depicts Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny, a 17th-century Cossack military commander. It was painted on planks of wood salvaged from Bucha, the site of the Russian atrocities war zone? Why should anyone care about a painting when cruise missiles are overhead? is a war of cultural identity," said curator Leonid Maruschak - one of many writers, musicians and scholars I've met here who make no distinction between the survival of the people and the has Ukrainian land and the survival of its history and ideas. While Russia is actively trying to erase Ukraine's national identity, that country's music, literature, movies, and landmarks are not recreations. These are battlefields. The real culture war of our time is the war for democracy, and Ukrainian culture, past and present, has become a vital line of defense for...