The first sustained cultural analysis of Russia at war that reveals how art, artists, and institutions become actors in conflict.

This book was conceived in wartime, and war stands at its center. It proceeds through an analysis of cultural phenomena and processes that, in one way or another, originated in Russia and bear on the present situation—regardless of where their actors may now reside.

Through a series of case studies, The Russian Archipelago at War Against Ukraine traces how war has entered the realm of art—literature, the visual arts, theater, film, and beyond—and examines the ways in which culture itself becomes a participant in war. What emerges are narratives of resistance and protest, of persecution and prohibition, and emergent forms of underground, but also postures of indifference, resignation, and compliance, including overt loyalty to and support for the ideology and practice of war, its perpetrators, and its objectives.

Underlying this content is a more unsettling question: what aesthetic, cultural-political, moral, and intellectual challenges, consequences, and perhaps even fragile hopes does the horror of war contain?