🎧🧍♀️🤍 The Right Not to Listen to an Anthem of Aggression#
Sometimes peace begins not with words.
Sometimes it begins with the decision not to listen to what brings pain.
Observation#
At the end of May 2026, during the European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships in Bulgaria, an event took place that quickly spread across Ukrainian media and social networks. During the medal ceremony, Ukrainian athletes Sofia Krainska and Varvara Chubarova chose an unusual way to express their position. When the anthems of representatives of countries involved in the war against Ukraine were played according to protocol, the girls put on headphones and covered their faces with their hands. They also refused the traditional handshakes. Their action was not aggressive. It did not interfere with the ceremony. It contained no insults and no humiliation. And that is precisely why millions of people noticed it.
What We Often Do Not Notice#
Society often expects people to endure everything.
To listen. To watch. To remain silent. To smile.
To pretend that nothing has happened.
Especially when protocol requires it.
But war changes the meaning of sounds.
For some people, an anthem remains part of a ceremony.
For others, it becomes forever connected to air-raid sirens, destroyed homes, lost cities, sleepless nights, and the memory of those who never returned.
In such circumstances, the right not to listen becomes not an act of disrespect, but a form of care for one’s own humanity.
Peace as a Practice#
Many people in countries untouched by war imagine peace as something external. The absence of explosions. The absence of weapons. The absence of danger. But those who live through war often discover another dimension of peace. Peace begins to exist within. In headphones worn during a night air raid. In a book read inside a shelter. In a child’s drawing created while sirens sound in the distance. In the ability to say: “I will not allow this into my inner world.” That is why the headphones worn on the medal podium became such a powerful symbol for many Ukrainians. Not a symbol of hatred. A symbol of a boundary.
For the Future#
Future generations will need to learn something important. Humanity does not require agreement with everything. Respect does not require forgetting. And peace does not require victims to pretend that nothing happened. True peace begins where people are allowed to remain honest about their experience. Even when that honesty takes the form of silence. Or headphones.
Conclusion#
We cannot always choose the sounds that exist around us. But we can choose which of them we allow into our hearts. Sometimes that choice becomes the first quiet victory of peace over war.
Alt-text:
A young athlete stands on a medal podium. Bluetooth headphones in her ears. Her eyes are closed and hidden behind her hands. An official award ceremony continues around her, yet a soft luminous dome of silence surrounds her figure. Beyond the dome remain flags, loudspeakers, and ceremonial noise. Within it are peace, dignity, and inner freedom.
Peaceful Life. The Right Not to Listen to an Anthem of Aggression. AP | Pivtorak.Studio. 02.06.2026
© Anna Pivtorak (Kostyuk)