“You are responsible for you,” is the phrase I hear often at the school where I teach art, and it is always referred to a student who tries to find something wrong with someone else’s actions. Responsibility is an interesting word. If one is a word nerd, by simple epistemological search, the roots are easy to find. The provenance of the word takes us back to Latin. In Latin, responsum “an answer,” noun use of the neuter past participle of respondere “respond, answer to, promise in return,” from re- “back” (see re-) + spondere “to pledge.” In other words, it relates to a personal response and commitment. It doesn’t enforce its will on others, doesn’t look for the speck of sawdust in someone’s eye, but rather, proceeds with its own sense of duty and understanding. The response is a personal answer to questions the world bestows upon us, and it is always active.  

An artist, Linor Goralik’s, answer to the Russian occupation of Ukraine came from a strange, but familiar to many, sense of hopelessness while facing the atrocities of the totalitarian, oppressive political machine. The war started on February 24^th, 2022, less than a month later, Goralik created a space where artists, writers, and poets have an outlet to voice their responses to the occupation. By the end of August 2024, her project had joined almost 200 volunteers, not including contributors. In our conversation about the birth of R.O.A.R., she used this particular word – hopelessness. Out of this feeling, some may consider weak, something powerful and dynamic emerged.

R.O.A.R. (Resistance and Opposition Arts Review), restricted in Russia at the time of our conversation[i], is a different kind of resistance. The project became a space for a community of people from different backgrounds, with the goal of responding, finding support, being heard, breaking isolation, and finding the emotional and physical strength not to conform to the regime and its persecution of free speech. It became a place for hope; an emergency exit in the time of Putin’s dictatorship. 

It is not a coincidence that I chose the phrase ‘an emergency exit’; I was drawn to it while looking at the illustration of one of the R.O.A.R.’s contributors, Ara Chalim. In her submission, she wrote, “In the times of Dictatorship art becomes an emergency exit.”  In her post, she referred to J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay, On Fairy-Stories, stating that reading helps her not only face political events, but also to deal with hardships in her personal life. In the quoted essay, Tolkien discusses the concept of escapism in literature.

I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which ‘Escape’ is now so often used: a tone for which the uses of the word outside literary criticism give no warrant at all. In what the misusers are fond of calling Real Life, Escape is evidently as a rule very practical, and may even be heroic.”  

And…

Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it.

The idea of escaping into fantasy, in extension to art, should not be dismissed as a weakness, but rather seen as strength. In this sense, R.O.A.R., not only creates the escape platform, but paradoxically brings the understanding of the outside world to a new level. The war and persecutions don’t become less real, and yet the power to resist and not conform through art, poetry, and music becomes stronger.  Linor’s vision for R.O.A.R., however, is not a fairytale with a happy ending. She said quite a few times during our talk that she awaits the time for it to be shut down or reimagined; the goal is to oppose the autocratic regime. To be an editor and to work with the amount of written material, whether short poems, essays, art, or music is not an easy task. Every piece becomes a shared personal story, someone’s hope, pain and even anger. All those strong notions are hard to process, but at the same time, help to break through indifference and tiredness that eventually follow long-term political conflicts.

While speaking of tiredness, it is understandable that for a human being to remain in a constant state of alertness, anger, and emotional turmoil is hard; all stages of grief are present, and yet the indifference that is the outcome of depression is one of the most dangerous ones. Hannah Arendt, in her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, published in 1963, while talking about the “banality of evil” and the effects of prolonged exposure to suffering, leading to indifference and numbness, examines the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was a key figure in organizing the Holocaust. Arendt explores how ordinary people can become indifferent to evil when they are exposed to it over an extended period. For Goralik, it is critical to oppose and battle this indifference.

When I asked about the dynamics of publications, she mentioned that by the year 2024, the tone of submitted work has changed as the war progressed and new major international events unfold. The publications have become more rational rather than emotional, transitioning from reaction to contemplation, analysis, and a deeper understanding that to endure and oppose the terrible actions of the regime, as well as the indifference, there must be space for collaboration and support. Like-minded people are needed, and freedom is a must.

I also asked if R.O.A.R. and reading the content had changed her. Goralik said, “Yes,” in the sense that it deepened her understanding of how difficult this position and responsibility is. It is challenging emotionally and physically; it is hard not to dehumanize others. If we dehumanize the so-called enemy, it might make things easier—a binary world where good and evil are in constant battle is easier to face and accept. But in a society, where information is abundant and readily accessible, the complexity of truth becomes undeniable. This challenges us to move beyond simplistic binaries and engage in a more thoughtful and empathetic discourse.

On one hand, this digital transparency creates chaos; on the other hand, it leads to a new way for truth to reveal itself. The Italian philosopher, Gianni Vattimo, calls this phenomenon a transparent society.

Vattimo proposes that the excess of information in the digital age has the potential not just to create informational chaos and confusion, but rather to reveal truth, which is rooted in freedom, in the chaos where “our hopes for emancipation lie.” In this context, by viewing R.O.A.R.’s work and a multiplicity of unfolded experiences, a sense of freedom and new understanding comes to the surface. The poetic response gives way to a more nuanced understanding of the complexity of human perceptions of the world; it allows us to see through the noise and uncover underlying realities.

My question circles back to the old notion of the artist’s responsibility in times of war. I was sharing with Lenoir my complex emotions about seeing publications on social media by Russian people who, while in Russia, post scenes of active and carefree social lives, or even their summer trips to Crimea, the land that is in territorial dispute, enjoying the sea, giving the impression that the war doesn’t exist — all while news of Russian occupiers bombing children’s hospitals, torturing prisoners and destroying civilian territories, surfaces. I have a difficult time comparing these with Tolkien’s notion of escape; for me, it is rather a creation of a different kind of fairytale – the lie that supports the regime’s propaganda.

Goralik’s response brought the conversation back to personal responsibility. She stated that she would never judge anyone for how they live, create, or express themselves. For Linor Goralik, however, the way to deal with unfolding reality is to talk about politics and war, and to keep the spirit of resistance alive, refusing to conform to fatigue and indifference. She doesn’t find it appropriate, while the occupation continues, to dilute a personal message with snippets of a carefree life, nor to ignore information about crimes committed by Russian armed forces on Ukrainian territories. Even when, as a creative herself, she wanted to share a project unrelated to the war, she first consulted her peers about the importance of the message, before deciding to share it. With this example of a strong personal position that respects the freedom of others with the vulnerability of emotions, kindness, and empathy, we finished our conversation.