"Our literature struggles to navigate against the current of muteness. The current of silence carries us away, and in this abyss of darkness and defilement, words are born. They are neither beautiful nor pleasant: they hurt, like arrows and bullets."
Tetyana Ogarkova and Volodymyr Yermolenko,
Life on the Edge
Annual event - 2nd edition in 2026
Avignon with Ukraine: "When words resist"
Every year at the Avignon Festival—Europe's largest theater event— Pour l'Ukraine organizes meetings to give a voice to Ukrainian creators and thinkers. In 2026, for the second time, Ukrainian culture will be featured in Avignon.
For the second year, Ukraine will be present at the major annual cultural event that is the Avignon Festival, thanks to the generous hospitality of the Maison Jean Vilar and the Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon.
From the Nazi occupation onward, the jurist Raphael Lemkin observed that the best way to destroy a nation was to eradicate its culture. This is precisely what Putin's Russia is doing: by systematically destroying, looting, and appropriating the artistic and archaeological heritage of the occupied territories of Ukraine, Moscow is attempting to erase the distinctiveness of a culture that does not belong to a supposed "Russian world." Its originality and authenticity are the hallmark of a sovereign people.
But Ukraine resists. On the front lines and in the hearts of its people, as well as in the work of its poets, novelists, playwrights, and thinkers. Never before have theater, cinema, poetry, and music experienced such effervescence and such resonance, even beyond the country's borders.
This creative vitality will be at the heart of the meetings we are organizing on July 17 and 18. To share their daily struggle for culture, Ukrainian writers, playwrights, and art professionals will be present at two events:
