For Ukraine's artists, rage has become both grief and creative fuel
Guardian culture writer Charlotte Higgins reflects on how rage has shaped Ukrainian artists and writers during the war, drawing parallels between performances of Verdi's Requiem and Homer's epic poetry. She notes that by 2026, this rage among many of her Ukrainian friends has burned low, replaced by fatigue.
In an essay for the Guardian, culture writer Charlotte Higgins describes hearing Verdi's Requiem performed twice by Ukrainian musicians — once in Lviv last spring, and once last month at St Paul's Cathedral in London, performed by the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra. Both times, she was struck by the Requiem's "Dies irae" ("day of anger") movement, which she felt embodied the depth of Ukrainian rage over the war.
Rage as creative fuel
Higgins cites author Oleksandr Mykhed, now serving in Ukraine's armed forces, who wrote a wartime alphabet book for children in which the letter L stands for "lyut" — rage. He describes it as a mixture of the desire to defend one's homeland, hatred for the enemy, and enduring love for one's people. Mykhed told Higgins this rage gave him the drive to write his book The Language of War, about the first year of the full-scale invasion.
Higgins draws a comparison between Ukrainian rage and the wrath of Achilles in Homer's Iliad, which drives the poem's narrative. She also references poet Iryna Shuvalova, whose poem February addresses the emotional shock of Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion.
A rage that has burned low
By 2026, Higgins writes, the rage among many of her Ukrainian friends has diminished, replaced by fatigue and emptiness. Journalist Kateryna Iakovlenko tells her she now feels anything is possible, including nuclear war. Sasha Dovzhyk, director of Ukraine's Index documentation institute, says she misses feeling rage, noting it once fuelled her writing of her forthcoming book, Apocalypse Baroque: Tales from Ukraine at War.
