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Visual Arts have always been a powerful medium in which war meets the eye. We only have to think of Los Disastres de la Guerra of Francisco Goya sketching the cruelties during the Peninsular War, which began in 1808.

Friday is Day 100 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Friday it will also be 100 days since we started Don’t give up Ukraine!. No day to celebrate of course. Even not to commemorate. In these 100 days we gave voice to the experience of the war and reflected on what hit Ukraine and the world in such an unprecedented way.

Tonight we continue our conversation on Ukrainian literature which which we started last week with Iryna Starovoyt. With our guests Alena Muravska and Tobias Wals we focus on the question if Ukrainian literature has a recognizable voice and face which deserves to be heard outside Ukraine.

Tonight we shift our view to Ukrainian literature and poetry as a lens on Ukraine as a nation, the war, and Ukraine’s past and future. The crossroad of war, nation, victory, liberation and suffering has always been the dramatic background for some of the greatest works in literature and poetry.

According to Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) ‘War is an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will.“ Like Machiavelli, Clausewitz saw peace as 'breathing time’ to prepare for the next military plans. This view of peace is - if it ever was - no longer convincing today.

Epochal historical crisis challenge intellectuals and universities to reconsider their role en mission in the history of mankind. After all, history and progress are not only the outcome blind processes, but also of idea’s, intellectual discoveries, inventions and mental shifts.