Anna Korzeniowska-Bihun

Class Act is a project implemented in Ukraine and addressed to young people. The idea behind it is to organize playwriting workshops for teenagers affected by the war in the eastern part of the country. This project makes use of the therapeutic potential of the theater, facing such problems as political prejudices, social stereotypes and children’s traumatic war experiences. Participants in workshop classes are enabled to understand the nature of the negative stimuli shaping their emotions. Moreover, they learn, e.g., the causes of social phenomena and their harmful effects, thus introducing a humanistic factor to their observations.

The idea of military anthropology is not new. In its inherent form, it can be traced back to ancient times. However, as a formulated discipline, the theoretical-cognitive reflection appears at the turn of the 20th and 21st century-military anthropology developed in parallel by Russian and American academics.

Class Act is a project implemented in Ukraine and addressed to young people. The idea behind it is to organize playwriting workshops for teenagers affected by the war in the eastern part of the country. This project makes use of the therapeutic potential of the theater, facing such problems as political prejudices, social stereotypes, and children's traumatic war experiences. Participants in the workshop classes are enabled to understand the nature of the negative stimuli shaping their emotions. Moreover, they learn, e.g., the causes of social phenomena and their harmful effects, thus introducing a humanistic factor to their observations.

The idea of military anthropology is not new. In its inherent form, it can be traced back to ancient times. However, as a formulated discipline, the theoretical cognitive reflection appears at the turn of the 20th and 21st century—military anthropology developed in parallel by Russian and American academics. Both approaches became, for us, Polish military anthropologists, the starting point for our research. The classic Russian paradigm grows out of multidisciplinary studies: history, psychology, cultural studies, sociology, and philosophy. Hence, Vladimir Bazhykov defines military anthropology as a tool for planning, developing, and handling armed and social violence to achieve specific political purposes. In this sense, the American paradigm of military anthropology is no different from the Russian one. An example of the practical application of anthropological methods of cognition as a tool for gaining a strategic advantage is the Human Terrain System used by the US Army in the Iraq Wars. However, ethical problems have arisen in American reflections on military anthropology. Moral inquiries about the use of anthropological methods of cognition as a tool for warfare have been raised by the American Anthropological Association and The Network of Concerned Anthropologists.
Nonetheless, while the American academics were dealing with the moral aspects of military anthropologists' activities, the Russian ones began to develop anthropological tools' new application fields. The Russian Federation's researchers ceased to treat anthropology only as a set of customs and culturally determined behaviors. The perspective on the opportunities offered by culture has changed. Even though the Russian war doctrine itself does not provide theoretical guidance on a new paradigm, one can observe the sharp shift from the culture understood as behavior to culture understood as creation.
Even before the Russian-Ukrainian war outbreak, Russia was using its literature, movies, theatre and fine arts as a weapon to change the narrative and discourse. Nowadays, it is evident that the culture and its products are being treated as a battlefield.
Living in Central Europe, Polish anthropologists cannot maintain the intellectual distance like their Americans colleagues. The problems connected with the hybrid war and culture, which are  parts, require all academic resources involvement. The contemporary battleground is also all about dominating people's thoughts.
We, at this moment, offer you a new paradigm of military anthropology, focused on culture as an area where a fierce battle for resources is taking part. These resources are not oil or strategic points, but identity, language, and heritage.

Understanding the laws that constitute the semiotic transformation of cultural space allows us to comprehend the use of the semiosphere in the areas of information warfare, propaganda,
disinformation, etc. These phenomena are seen as threats coming from state actors who are able to use the semiotic nature of culture to influence the collective consciousness of specific groups. The panel would like to present contributions from various scientific fields on the interaction between concepts such as conflict, violence, and warfare and semiotics, using a variety of research methods. The
exploration of semiotic fields and divergences between them provides a better understanding of the fundamental laws that constitute the semiotic load (or semiotic features) of each cultural area. Thus, the implications of such reasoning potentially allow for a better management of those social connections which control the interaction between diverse cultural regions of friction. The panel therefore invites various contributions which explore conflict and its connotations, such as armed conflict, propaganda, disinformation, conflict settlement, peace negotiations, violence, and violence deterrence. Eventually, the goal is to analyse the semiotic nature of given cultures and cultural flows and their influence on the
collective consciousness, patterns of behaviour, and identity creation.

Recent events in Ukraine have shown that modern wars are waged not only on the battlefield but also on a massive scale through cultural means (see Korzeniowska-Bihun 2014; Boroch 2016, 81-94). Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, the Ukrainian theatre has been combatting not only the increasing migration of its internally displaced audiences, but also the ongoing cultural propaganda from Russia that denies the independent status of Ukraine. This chapter develops the theory of anthropological defence whereby a nation wages a cultural war at the same time as a military war. It focuses on two Ukrainian theatre companies: the Theatre of Displaced People (TDP) and the Luhansk Regional Theatre. The TDP was founded in 2014 to provide psycho logical and organisational aid for people forced to flee their homes in eastern Ukraine. The Luhansk Regional Theatre has shared the fate of the migrants them selves, having to change their place of operation because of the Russian invasion. In this chapter, we study how theatre-both as an artistic practice and as a cultural institution-can play a unique role in the practices of the anthropo logical defence. Theatre's primary functions-we argue-are inextricably linked to culture. As a weapon of the anthropological defence, theatre can enable resistance against negative information from the enemy; and it can provide artistic sup port and information through its creative work. Moreover, during the time of

Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, the Ukrainian theatre has encountered the problem of growing migration. This chapter outlines two Ukrainian theatre companies: the Theatre of Displaced People and the Luhansk Regional Theatre. The first was funded in 2014 to support people forced to flee their homes in eastern Ukraine. The artistic activity of the TDP was to provide psychological and organisational aid to IDPs. The latter, the Luhansk Regional Theatre, shared the fate of the migrants themselves. As a result of the Russian invasion, it had to change its place of operation twice. First, it operated in the eastern Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk. After 24 February 2022, the company was forced to relocate to two towns: Dnipro and Drohobych.