The village of my postwar childhood was a village of women. (…) I don’t remember any men’s voices. That is how it has remained for me: stories of the war are told by women. – Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War

Women at War introduces some of the leading women artists working in Ukraine today to the American audience, and provides a context for the current war. Several works in the exhibition were made after February 24, 2022, when Russia began full‐scale invasion of Ukraine; others date from the eight years of war following the annexation of Crimea and the creation of separatist “People’s Republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014.

War is central to history. History has been written (and painted) by men. This exhibition provides a platform for female narrators of history and examines the perception of war as gendered. War disrupts social structures, including gender roles. Both World Wars led to the emancipation of women, but when they ended, women were sent back home. Historically, in the West women were mobilized on the “home front” as opposed to the “war front,” although many joined combat in drag. In Eastern Europe, the “home front” never existed—every war was fought at home and women participated in great numbers in partisan groups and uprisings. In general, neither in the West nor in the East women were admitted into the army in combat roles until recently, but there were exceptions: Russian army allowed women in combat already during WWI. Women are generally absent from the historical accounts of war, but violating a woman is seen as a violation of land and nation. Media images reinforce the perception of gender divide. But is war indeed gendered? Women comprise c. 25% of Ukrainian armed forces. Russian soldiers rape Ukrainian civilians of all genders, including adult men. Many artists in this exhibition struggle with the notion of victimhood and pose the question in what way women have agency during war.

The exhibition also provides an insight into Eastern European feminisms, which are significantly different from the Western mold. It contributes to the discourse about how national identity is tied to the perception of women’s role in society. There are parallels between the fight for Ukraine’s independence and the fight for its women’s equality, stemming from the paradoxes of the Soviet Union, where early modernist, anti‐nationalist, and feminist promises became but a fig leaf of propaganda in the brutal and misogynist patriarchal regime it became. Not only national identity of Ukrainians found itself in a bipolar lock after the fall of the Soviet empire but the role and image of woman in society as well.

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