Andrej Strocaŭ. Photo: Alena Kandyba

Feature Article No: 01/25
29 April 2025
Brussels

By Susan Kim (*)

Andrej Strocaŭ is the formerly anonymous artist whose illustrations were at the heart of an animated short film about Ukraine, screened at the Conference of European Churches (CEC) General Assembly in Tallinn, 2023.

Nearly two years later, Strocaŭ can now publicly associate his name with his work, as he has left Belarus for Lithuania. The two-and-a-half-minute film, animated by Samuel Pfeffer, titled: “Ukraine: Whole, Broken, Burnt, Renewed,” has drawn a deep emotional global response. The film was produced for CEC as part of its Pathways to Peace initiative. 

“The film is existential and universal; it’s about the war and fires that destroy life itself,” said Strocaŭ. From his perspective, the war between Russia and Ukraine has been going on since 2014.

The animated film—with stark red, black, and white images of power, fire, blood, and finally, the ultimate sacrifice followed by renewal—presented Strocaŭ with an opportunity and a challenge to express how he sees the war.

“There is a quite one-sided aggression. There is this evil. There is a destructive force, but in this film I don’t represent the defense as a resistance—not because the resistance isn’t necessary but because I don’t think resistance is the final word.”

In the film Strocaŭ tries to avoid presenting his work only as "protest" art. He avoids a narrative that puts the aggressor in focus, in a military sense.  

Rather its hope rooted in Christian faith that he highlights. 

No simple answer

What he most wanted, was to present an alternative to one-sidedness. “Of course, this is not the answer that would fit all kinds of people,” he said. “What I present is an aggression, destruction, the experience of refugees—and over it all there is some kind of sacrifice that gives the form of the future.”

Though we observe a crucifixion in the film, Strocaŭ by no means sees Ukraine as some kind of “new Christ” that is sacrificed for the sin of the world.

“I don’t know how exactly this war will end but I hope and I know that there is something more than war within Ukraine and within the European world right now—and even in Russia there is something much more complicated than this madness Putin started,” he said.

“What I wanted to express was some kind of hope for something stronger,” he reflected. “How it materializes is still a question for me.”

Since he created the film nearly two years ago, sadly, he doesn’t think much has changed.

“Forced migration is going on,” he said. “My friends still continue leaving Ukraine because of the war and Russia because of the violence of the regime. I left my home in Belarus the same way.”

The film features an immediately recognisable image of the holy family moving to Egypt to flee from persecution. “I’m not sure about myself and my future,” he said. “For me, I find some solace in that Christ as a human and me as Christian share this experience of emigration.”

Pathways to Peace

At the CEC General Assembly, the film was shown during the session that discussed Pathways to Peace, a CEC initiative focusing on Ukraine, and promoting justice, reconciliation, and peace.

Strocaŭ has seen reconciliation in his own life, back in 2020 in Belarus, following the rigged presidential elections.

“In Belarus, then, this was more than just confrontation between the people and the government, because it was about the gathering of the country, the gathering of the nation, and the creation of some horizontal connections,” he said. “For me, the greatest symbol of those events is not the great demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people in the streets with the flags—which was beautiful—but it was in courtyards where people eat with those on their block.”

People sympathetic to your cause were everywhere, added Strocaŭ. “They were simply gathered to take tea and play guitar—but it happened all over the place,” he said. “For me, this was not protest—because protest is reactionary, and if you are the reaction then you are not primary.”

Strocaŭ surmised that, perhaps lasting “pathways to peace” form when people gather to drink tea with their neighbors.

“It wasn’t left or right. It wasn’t liberal against conservative. It was as a nation,” he said. “It was about people who found some deep solidarity, and it didn’t go away.”

For true peace, you need to trust people with whom you live, he added. “For me as a Christian, this gathering around for a cup of tea, it was something eucharistic.”

A world yet to come

Strocaŭ is currently working on a series of pictures dedicated to the 1700th anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. “I have divided into 12 elements a series of pictures on each statement of the creed, and it will be published as a little book,” he said.

For now, to make ends meet, he also works as a waiter in a restaurant in Lithuania—and his stories are by no means finished.

His work has appeared on several covers of the American Orthodox theological review called “The Wheel.” He has also illustrated books of poetry and prayers.

“For now, I can’t go back as long as the government in Belarus is supported by the government in Russia, but I’m not going to consider myself some kind of victim,” he said.

During the last several years, he’s been studying the work of J.R.R. Tolkien.

“In his world, everyone, is a refugee – elves, men, dwarves, etc. They lose their lands and their homes, and, for Tolkien, the homecoming is some kind of eternal theme,” said Strocaŭ. “Of course that’s something understandable for a Christian because the Christian has this understanding of life as a pilgrimage.”

Perhaps, Strocaŭ ventured, we belong to some kind of new world that is yet to come. “But we don’t simply sit and wait. It’s a painful and hard process,” he said.

Now part of an Belarusian Orthodox parish in Lithuania, Strocaŭ has found a community in which people help one another. “We have to learn more about each other, about our neighbours. We will never live in a world where there is no Lithuania, where there is no Ukraine,” he said.

Watch here: Ukraine: Whole, Broken, Burnt, Renewed

Learn more about Pathways to Peace 

(*) Susan Kim is a freelance journalist from the United States.