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War’s (Un)womanly Face: Gendered Perspectives on Ukrainian Music During the War

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Published/Copyright: April 8, 2026
Human Affairs
From the journal Human Affairs Volume 36 Issue 2

Abstract

This study examines the creative responses of Ukrainian composers to the ongoing full-scale Russian invasion, focusing on the intersection of war, gender, and musical expression. Situating the inquiry within the broader theoretical fields of feminist aesthetics, trauma studies, and cultural sociology, the research explores how artistic creation functions as a form of ethical resistance, individual survival, and collective testimony under conditions of violence. The war has transformed the role of the composer in Ukraine, redefining the relationship between personal expression and public responsibility, between the autonomy of art and its civic mission. A distinctive feature of the investigation is its real-time methodological approach: for the first time, it has become possible to document the compositional process as it unfolds amid the lived reality of war, rather than through retrospective reconstruction. The study is based on direct dialogues with ten Ukrainian composers – five female and five male – representing different generations and stylistic orientations. All works analysed were written during the first months of the invasion in 2022, granting them both documentary and emotional immediacy. A key analytical dimension distinguishes between commissioned and self-initiated (“initiated”) works, revealing how external institutional frameworks or internal impulses shape the aesthetic and ethical trajectories of wartime creativity. The comparative findings challenge conventional gender assumptions. Female composers tended to respond with heightened creative activity, focusing on reflection and ethical awareness rather than explicitly programmatic or heroic themes. Male composers, while often addressing motifs of struggle and victory, likewise demonstrated a predominant inclination toward philosophical introspection and documentation of the present moment. The statistical and thematic data reveal a convergence of creative strategies: both women and men engage in humanistic and contemplative re-evaluation of collective trauma rather than gender-specific artistic differentiation. From a theoretical standpoint, the results indicate a profound shift in the gender paradigm of Ukrainian music. The traditional dichotomy between “male” and “female” artistic expression – long sustained by sociocultural stereotypes – proves inadequate to describe the shared creative reality of artists working under existential threat. Instead, what emerges is a unified field of artistic response rooted in empathy, resilience, and ethical agency. Ukrainian composers today act simultaneously as creators and witnesses, transforming lived catastrophe into musical testimony. Their work underscores not only the adaptive potential of art in times of war but also the erosion of gender boundaries within contemporary creative practice.

Keywords: Ukrainian composers; gender and music; wartime creativity; trauma and art; cultural resilience; post-2022 Ukrainian music
Corresponding author: Lidiya Melnyk, PhD, Dr. habil, professor, Lviv National Academy of Music named after Mykola Lysenko, Ostapa Nyzhankivskoho St, 5, 79000 Lviv, Ukraine, E-mail:

Acknowledgements

All individuals listed as authors qualify as authors and have approved the submitted version. Their work is original and is not under consideration by any other journal. They have permission to reproduce any previously published material.

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Received: 2025-11-02
Accepted: 2026-03-13
Published Online: 2026-04-08
Published in Print: 2026-05-26

© 2026 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Article
  3. Borders of Transgression: Violence of Norms and Violence of Violations
  4. I Musical Diplomacy and Cultural Production in Wartime Ukraine: Breaking Through Peripherality
  5. Editorial
  6. Musical Diplomacy and Cultural Production in Wartime Ukraine: Breaking Through Peripherality/Subalternity?
  7. Research Articles
  8. War’s (Un)womanly Face: Gendered Perspectives on Ukrainian Music During the War
  9. Soundscape of War in the Jazz Album Music Under Siege by Volodymyr Balaba and Galyna Dub
  10. A Song as a Musical Key to Cultural Memory of Ukrainians
  11. The Brutal Battle of Soft Powers: Staging Russia, Silencing Ukraine? The Operatic Skandal in Wiesbaden
  12. Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra: Shifting Paradigms of Politics and Classical Music
  13. Miscellaneous
  14. Ukrainian Musical Diplomacy and Cultural Entrepreneurialism in Times of War: EU Contexts
  15. II The Voice from below in the Face of Repression
  16. Editorial
  17. The Voice From Below in the Face of Repression
  18. Research Articles
  19. Making Films Fantastiques in the 1970s Czechoslovakia: Juraj Herz’s Testimony
  20. Between Adaptation, Evasion and Resistance: Grey Zones in Slovak Literature During the Decline of State Socialism
https://doi.org/10.1515/humaff-2025-0090
Keywords for this article
Ukrainian composers; gender and music; wartime creativity; trauma and art; cultural resilience; post-2022 Ukrainian music

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Article
  3. Borders of Transgression: Violence of Norms and Violence of Violations
  4. I Musical Diplomacy and Cultural Production in Wartime Ukraine: Breaking Through Peripherality
  5. Editorial
  6. Musical Diplomacy and Cultural Production in Wartime Ukraine: Breaking Through Peripherality/Subalternity?
  7. Research Articles
  8. War’s (Un)womanly Face: Gendered Perspectives on Ukrainian Music During the War
  9. Soundscape of War in the Jazz Album Music Under Siege by Volodymyr Balaba and Galyna Dub
  10. A Song as a Musical Key to Cultural Memory of Ukrainians
  11. The Brutal Battle of Soft Powers: Staging Russia, Silencing Ukraine? The Operatic Skandal in Wiesbaden
  12. Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra: Shifting Paradigms of Politics and Classical Music
  13. Miscellaneous
  14. Ukrainian Musical Diplomacy and Cultural Entrepreneurialism in Times of War: EU Contexts
  15. II The Voice from below in the Face of Repression
  16. Editorial
  17. The Voice From Below in the Face of Repression
  18. Research Articles
  19. Making Films Fantastiques in the 1970s Czechoslovakia: Juraj Herz’s Testimony
  20. Between Adaptation, Evasion and Resistance: Grey Zones in Slovak Literature During the Decline of State Socialism
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