Resisting Dehumanization: A Feminist Reading of Iconoclashes in Ukrainian War Art

This chapter presents, analyses and discusses cases of wartime iconography and a videoclip annex protest song, produced by mainly female Ukrainian artists as a response to the Russian war on Ukraine. From a traditional religious worldview, these works may confront and disturb. Worlds are being brought together that were believed to be separated: the holy and the profane, the peaceful spiritual and the military world of armed battle, native pagan and traditional Christian imagery. Worlds are clashing in the series of icons painted on ammunition boxes by Sonia Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko, in the images ‘Saint Javelin(a)’ and ‘Saint Olha of Kyiv’, and in the witch’s song Vrazhe (‘To the Enemy’) by the women’s group Angy Kreyda. Inspired by the work of Anne-Marie Korte, the chapter undertakes an analysis of how religion, the female body, Orthodox culture and military imagery are at play and creatively intersect in these works to produce an artistic effect of disquiet and uncertainty. The artworks tell, from their inner tensions and collisions, about upholding human dignity in the face of violence and destruction. ‘Weak resistance’, visceral aesthetics and women’s (spiritual) agency turn out to be key aspects of the works’ performative power.