The show must go on: Ukraine’s circus in wartime

The National Circus of Ukraine has a long history. While its current building, built in 1960, has a seating capacity of 2,100 – and occupies 23,000 square metres – Ukraine circus tradition is embedded in Ukrainian culture, going back to the 19th century, with roots as far back as the 9th century, when wandering performers began the performance tradition.

Throughout everything, the circus remains a proud symbol of Ukrainian identity and resilience – and this is never more true than now, as the circus has endured, kept their animals safe and fed and put on shows for veterans and children to assuage and keep spirits up. Taking the audience and artists alike to the Soviet-built shelters under the auditorium during the frequent air alerts, they are proof that the show must go on.

All photographs by Susan Schulman.

While the circus continues to defy the onslaught of war, the experiences of its individual members are emblematic of the heavy toll it has taken.

One such story belongs to tiger trainer Yulia Kozyreva and her husband Mikola. The couple had gone to their country house to collect food for them from their garden, when a missile landed in their garden. The blast threw them to the ground.

Eleven days later, Mikola collapsed in the ring in front of the audience, while waltzing solo with the white tigress Lady. Briefly revived by a doctor in the audience, he died in the ambulance on the way to hospital. Heartbroken, Julia nevertheless continued to perform on her own, as her husband would have wanted. The war posed another fundamental challenge for Julia. While she’d been in Ukraine for 20 years, performing with the circus, she is Russian, from Krasnodar. When the invasion began, she refused to believe her birth country was bombing the place she loved. For a year, she held on to that disbelief.

“When we get hit like the other night,” she explains, “the media in Russia says no residential buildings were hit and no one killed.” She told herself there had to be some mistake, that the truth was more complicated. She tried to make her family understand. “But they just say the media says it’s Ukrainians bombing their own children.” When she showed her mother pictures of the children’s hospital bombing, her mother had a heart episode.

A year into the war, denial was no longer possible. “I understood then,” she says. “They are bastards. There is no way to forgive what they have done.” Julia can’t go back to Russia. Her father can’t come to Ukraine. She couldn’t attend her brother’s funeral. Her husband’s parents, in Crimea, couldn’t attend his funeral.

“That country doesn’t exist for me anymore,” she adds. “I will never forgive. Never.”