Theater in the Face of War. Polish-Ukrainian theatrical ties after the Russian invasion in 2014

This book aims to commemorate and honor people and events in Polish and Ukrainian theater at a time when people-to-people solidarity is especially important and should rise above nationalistic prejudices, historical resentments or political interests. For Polish and Ukrainian theater artists, 2014 and the beginning of the Russian military intervention in Ukraine marked a period when distant poetics and theatrical traditions, as well as artists who had no creative or social ties to each other, began to work together. They began to discover themselves and their theater in the face of an enemy that, for some, was real and a threat, destroying their country, and for others a potential danger. The ambition of the book is to present artistic activities in a broad social and political context. For theater in the face of war never functions in an abstract vacuum, it happens here and now, created by people for whom art is both a form of artistic expression, but also a struggle for independence. Professor Piotr Horbatowskis scholarly work focuses on the study of the history of the theatrical activity of Poles abroad, with particular emphasis on the East and Far East. He is the author of monographs devoted to Polish theatrical life in Ukraine. In the field of glottodidactics, he is interested in innovative, unconventional teaching methods.