The solemn violin drone of Solomiya Ivakhiv and the twinkling piano keys of Nadia Shpachenko reverberated through the warm silence of the room. The space was humble in contrast to its grandiose exterior: a towering three-story mansion across the street from the Met, home to the Ukrainian Institute of America. Before they play, Solomiya tells the audience that Nadia has been learning Ukrainian since the war began. “She is not as good as me yet, but she’s getting there,” joked Solomiya. They are now performing far from Ukraine, where Nadia used to live and where all of Solomiya’s relatives are today. The piece was a series of dances from the Epera opera by Thomas ‘Foma’ de Hartmann, honoring the 20th-century Ukrainian composer in a night of music named “Rediscovering Hartmann.” Yet, underneath the folksy, vivid melodies of these performers, if you listened closely, there was a muted interlude of sirens and horns from a bustling New York City bubbling underneath.

Rediscovery has rested at the core of Ukrainian identity since the start of the war in Feb. 2022. This is a rediscovery rooted in the revival of the past—of personhood, of lost historical traditions, and of an appropriated national culture. For these musicians, performances of largely forgotten Ukrainian compositions represent a broader phenomenon since the war: an artistic and linguistic tradition rising from the ashes. Three years out from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, over 6.7 million Ukrainians have been forced to migrate away from their homes and grapple with how they should preserve the identity of Ukraine. Today, Ukrainian musicians are maintaining the memory of an ongoing, brutal war and a revitalized notion of being Ukrainian by carrying their country’s musical tradition close to their chest.