Editor's note:
Wendy Guerra is a French-Cuban writer and contributor to CNN en Español.
Her articles have appeared in media around the world, such as El País, The New York Times, the Miami Herald, El Mundo and La Vanguardia.
Among her most outstanding literary works are "Underwear" (2007), "I was never the first lady" (2008), "Posing naked in Havana" (2010) and "Everyone leaves" (2014).
Her work has been published in 23 languages.
The comments expressed in this column belong exclusively to the author.
See more at cnne.com/opinion
The little daughter is on the mattress, dead.
How many have been in it? A platoon, company, maybe?
A girl has been turned into a woman,
a woman became a corpse.
“Prussian nights”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
(CNN Spanish) --
The abuse of the sensitive and sublime part of a country, the rape of women and girls, the looting of the sentimental heritage of a people, the loss of its memory, the trampling of its values and the disappearance of respect to this sophisticated part of a nation are some of the irreparable crimes that wars cause.
Killing a being that gives us life is, in a certain way, cutting the umbilical cord with humanity.
Even if we close our eyes, even if we look for a reason without results, these images will remain forever etched in your memory:
The horror on the faces
Marina Sochenko is a Ukrainian visual artist who, in 2014, during the pre-war conflict with Russia, spent tense days painting in Kyiv's Independence Square as a form of protest.
When a woman doesn't sleep her innermost ideas jump like fish to the surface.
It will be for this reason that Sochenko, who only painted flowers, began to recreate the horror on the faces that passed by her.
art on fire
The independent newspaper Kyiv denounced a few days ago the attack by the Russian invaders on the museum of the artist Mariia Prymachenko, a transcendent figure of Ukrainian native culture.
This house, today reduced to ashes, is on the land of the painter who died in 1997, located in the town of Ivankiv, in the Kyiv region.
Pictorial jewels made by the hand of this sensitive woman, considered a faithful representative of international naïve art and one of the most renowned Ukrainian painters of the 20th century, were lost in the fire.
The destruction of her work is compared to the burning of works of art in Soviet times.
History of barbarism in the art generated by war
On burning, censorship and kidnapping of pictorial works, we remember the Muscovite businessman Sergei Shchukin, a prosperous Russian textile manufacturer, who, by becoming a collector, successfully promoted the development of the French avant-garde. Unfortunately, his enormous collection was not well received by the Bolsheviks, who tirelessly pursued him.
This is how Shchukin was forced to leave his works behind to go into exile in Paris and in 1936 he died in exile, under the sad cloak of anonymity.
His collection, which had transcendental works by Monet, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Picasso, among other great masters, was nationalized by Lenin after the Russian Revolution and when Stalin came to power, some specialized journalists say that he had ordered it burned because he considered it a symptom of bourgeois decadence,
but in the end he decided to capriciously divide it between two museums – the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg and the Pushkin in Moscow –, where it remained hidden in its cellars.
During World War II, the Soviet occupation forces burned and seized the works of great artists.
There is a lot of literature, cinema and historiographical testimonies that tell and prove these terrible actions.
Some have happy endings, but others disappeared in basements or fires.
In 2013, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly summoned Russian President Vladimir Putin by demanding that German art seized by the Soviets after World War II be returned to Germany, a claim the Russian leader adamantly opposed.
where it remained hidden in its cellars.
During World War II, the Soviet occupation forces burned and seized the works of great artists.
There is a lot of literature, cinema and historiographical testimonies that tell and prove these terrible actions.
Some have happy endings, but others disappeared in basements or fires.
In 2013, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly summoned Russian President Vladimir Putin by demanding that German art seized by the Soviets after World War II be returned to Germany, a claim the Russian leader adamantly opposed.
where it remained hidden in its cellars.
During World War II, the Soviet occupation forces burned and seized the works of great artists.
There is a lot of literature, cinema and historiographical testimonies that tell and prove these terrible actions.
Some have happy endings, but others disappeared in basements or fires.
In 2013, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly summoned Russian President Vladimir Putin by demanding that German art seized by the Soviets after World War II be returned to Germany, a claim the Russian leader adamantly opposed.
cinema and historiographical testimonies that tell and prove these terrible actions.
Some have happy endings, but others disappeared in basements or fires.
In 2013, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly summoned Russian President Vladimir Putin by demanding that German art seized by the Soviets after World War II be returned to Germany, a claim the Russian leader adamantly opposed.
cinema and historiographical testimonies that tell and prove these terrible actions.
Some have happy endings, but others disappeared in basements or fires.
In 2013, then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly summoned Russian President Vladimir Putin by demanding that German art seized by the Soviets after World War II be returned to Germany, a claim the Russian leader adamantly opposed.
Applause that will silence the bombs, just for a few minutes
Olga Smirnova, star of Moscow's canonical Bolshoi ballet, defected after denouncing the Russian invasion of Ukraine with a memorable phrase: "A line has been drawn."
Smirnova joined this company in 2011 and in it she has played great roles such as "Giselle" and "Swan Lake", among others, but today her conscience leads her to make this clear and courageous decision.
Born in Saint Petersburg, of a Ukrainian grandfather, the artist delves into the true origin of this war and confesses to the world: "I never thought I would be ashamed of Russia".(...) "It hurts me that people die, that people lose the roof over their heads or be forced from their homes. And who would have thought a few weeks ago that all of this would happen? We may not be at the epicenter of military conflict, but we cannot remain indifferent in the face of this global catastrophe."
After perceiving the sensitivity of this artist, I can't imagine her playing big roles in this place, knowing the symbolic load that accompanying the determinations of a dictator like Putin implies.
On her Telegram account, the virtuoso dancer declared that she was "against the war with all the fibers of my soul."
Smirnova made an excellent “écarté” and her steps have taken her to the Netherlands.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Dutch National Ballet said Smirnova had been "welcomed with open arms."
Those of us who love ballet look forward to her big debut in April in the staging of "Raymonda".
Olga is an example for many Russian women who today find themselves silenced by the machismo of a tyrant, but in total disagreement with this fateful outcome, because this type of silence makes an overwhelming noise.
The resounding applause for Olga in her new company will silence for a few minutes the sound of Russian bombs over the Ukrainian sky.
hospital bombing
Ukrainian emergency workers and volunteers carry an injured pregnant woman from a maternity hospital that was damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
War photojournalists have created an entire narrative that shows the short distance between abuse and panic.
An example of this is the photo of this bloodied woman, with a lost look. At first she and her son survived the bombing of a mother and child hospital, but later they died despite the surgeon who tried to revive them both.
This photo is pure history and this innocent, reached inside a medical center, is today one more corpse in the list of victims devastated by the bombs.
On heroes and graves
Darja Stomatova, a reporter for a CNN affiliate network, walks through Kharkiv, revealing an area littered with corpses that ooze and stink around her.
As in a horror film, this brave woman describes and reveals to the world true sculptures made of inert bodies and abandoned weapons.
The sad reality that exists in Ukraine.
These are the images of the destruction in Kharkiv, Ukraine 3:20
Days later a Ukrainian colleague, Olesksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova, “bright and full of life”, dies reporting an attack near Kyiv.
2 Fox News journalists killed in attack near Kyiv 1:54
A message of solidarity
Marina Abramovic, of Serbian origin, is undoubtedly one of the most transcendental female artists of universal contemporary art.
She knows very well the disaster that wars generate, and in this video she expresses her absolute solidarity with her fellow Ukrainian artists, with whom she has recently collaborated.
The art on the covers and on the walls
"Motherland" is the latest cover of The New Yorker magazine.
A woman is the one who signs it.
It is about the Valencian illustrator Ana Juan and her excellent work shows a mother who embraces and protects her two children.
Behind her, a Ukrainian soldier watches dozens of people flee from a burning building.
Inside this week's issue of The New Yorker: https://t.co/VkCcUjjg8P pic.twitter.com/ck8OfrNu9r
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) March 14, 2022
On the walls and murals of various parts of the world, hundreds of artists express their feelings, intervening with paintings and graffiti on the avenues to denounce the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Not by chance, women are the axis of these drawings, and walking under the female faces we feel upset by the impotence of this act, but above all, committed to the future of those who fight or are trapped in this nightmare.
So I wonder:
What will become of the women who oppose Putin's orders, what will become of the Russians, Ukrainians, what will become of the artists, reporters, soldiers, mothers, wives and daughters who face that enormous power, what will become of art and its artists, of the memory of the world intervened by weapons, what will become of ourselves tomorrow if today we close our eyes to this ignominy?
Please share the images of these artists and reporters.
It is the only way to make visible the crime that we have had to witness.
No one is safe.