Taiga

• Elizabeth Gilbert, the celebrated author of Eat, Pray, Love, has cancelled her latest novel, The Snow Forest.
• Planned for publication in February 2024, there is now no release date.
• Others argue that writing a work of historical fiction that humanises Russian people does not amount to taking sides in a war.

Non-violent resistance

• The struggle against South African apartheid was largely won not by violent resistance, but through international campaigns that isolated the regime.
• The sports boycotts, in particular, caused social and psychological pain and eroded the ideological foundation of the apartheid system.
• Czechoslovakian resistance to Soviet occupation in 1968 involved leaflets in Russian, German and Polish explaining to the occupiers that they were in the wrong.
• Secret radio stations broadcast advice and resistance news.
• Civilian resistance has been an official part of Lithuania’s defence strategy ever since.

The battleground of culture

• “Fiction and culture are essential to supporting mutual understanding and unleashing empathy,” she argues: “literature and creativity must not become a casualty of war.” However, Nossel also admits culture is not just caught in the crossfire; it is itself a battleground.
• The war in Ukraine is being waged through “propaganda, intimidation, false narratives, and a campaign of cultural annihilation”.
• Culture, says Nossel, must be mobilised as a “wellspring of defence”.
• Since the invasion of Ukraine, creatives there have protected galleries, museums and collections.
• They have used writing, dance, fashion, film, painting and poetry to assert their national identity and desire for peace.