ABSTRACT
Experienced emotions can express resistance, and help to develop and spur resistance. This reflection considers how Ukrainians living under the Russian invasion have articulated the emotional upheaval and negotiated the effects experienced in relation to the disruption and horror of war. French philosopher Marc Crépon suggests that love and friendship counter and refuse violence and that belongs to the ‘essence of life’ (2022, p. 4). Indeed, the Ukrainian authors of these diaries and dreams, writing soon after the invasion of their country on the 24th of February 2022, experience love, joy, gratitude, and hope, emotions that are linked to endurance, courage, confidence, and the will to survive. Olha K. writes that ‘I can’t help admiring people, I love everyone. Everyone who writes about being alive, everyone who helps, everyone who does something, hugs, calms down, sends music, news, cooks to eat, strokes a cat, goes to the pharmacy, takes photos, or saves lives … I love people and I am grateful for having many of them around’. Solidarity with others also comes from the grief experienced in the face of loss, as Yelyzaveta B. says, ‘Grief unites’ as grief is connected to love (Kelly Oliver, 2012, pp. 127–135). The diaries and dream-memories act as a part of that process of countering violence—a care for the self that sustains the authors as individuals and as members of the community. Nevertheless, the feelings of desire for revenge, anger, and hatred, as well as courage and loyalty, can also play a sustaining role for resistors, as Lisa Tessman and other philosophers have argued (Tessman, 2005, pp. 116–125), and these are frequently articulated in the dreams and diaries. What is further evident in the diaries is that the authors feel they have to control their emotions of panic, hopelessness, and despair, or if not, hide their expression from others, as these emotions are the most opposed to hope (Anthony Steinbock, 2007, pp. 440–450) and resistance. Their responses are in the moment, facing the uncertainty of what is ahead and incomplete, yet look beyond the moment through this emotional resistance that builds courage.
Crépon, M. (2022). The trial of hatred: An essay on the refusal of violence (D.J.S. Cross & T. M. Williams, Trans.). Edinburgh University Press. (Original work published 2016)
Oliver, K. (2012). Robert Solomon and the ethics of grief and gratitude: Toward a politics of love. In K. Higgins & D. Sherman (Eds.), Passion, death, and spirituality: The philosophy of Robert C. Solomon (pp. 127–135). Springer.
Steinbock, A. (2007). The phenomenology of despair. International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 15(3), 435–451.
Tessman, L. (2005). Burdened virtues: Virtue ethics for liberatory struggles. Oxford University Press.
