The Death of Modernism

Modernism was a child of the twentieth century’s belief in progress. It was an artistic and intellectual movement that sought purity of form, rationality of structure, and an escape from the burdens of inherited tradition. At its heart lay the conviction that humanity could design a better world. Whether through architecture’s sweeping geometries, literature’s quest for the interior truth, or politics’ preoccupation with the scientific organisation of society, modernism looked forward with confidence. The world, she believed, might be transformed through the disciplined application of reason.

Two decades into the twenty-first century, that confidence has collapsed amidst the ruins of war in Ukraine. What has died is not merely a set of aesthetic principles but the philosophical worldview that underpinned them. The wars upon Ukrainian soil have revealed that the central assumptions of modernism have not survived the century that gave birth to them. In their place lie fragmentation, uncertainty, and a renewed understanding of history as something that cannot be engineered out of human experience.

The first casualty of modernism has been its belief in linear progress. The notion that Europe had moved beyond major interstate conflict was the ultimate modernist promise. After 1945, many came to imagine the continent as a space governed by institutions rather than passions, by technocratic administration rather than the raw politics of violence. Ukraine’s experience since 2014, and particularly since the full-scale invasion of 2022, has revealed that the desire for territorial conquest, the force of historical mythology, and the willingness of a neighbouring state to use overwhelming military force remain very much alive. Russia’s actions cannot be understood within a modernist framework that assumes rational actors pursuing stable preferences within a predictable system. Instead one encounters a political culture shaped by archaic stories, imperial nostalgia and a belief that identity is rooted in blood and soil. This exposes the limits of the modernist claim that rational planning could tame the darker forces of history.

The second blow to modernism has come through the shattering of universalist narratives. Modernism sought purity: in form, in truth, in moral clarity. Yet the Ukrainian wars have revealed the world to be a place of competing narratives that cannot be reconciled within a single overarching structure. Ukraine asserts her identity as a sovereign people with a right to determine her own future. Russia, by contrast, frames the conflict through a distorted historical lens that attempts to dissolve Ukrainian identity entirely. The international community, meanwhile, oscillates between competing priorities of security, economics and political principle. No single narrative captures the complexity of these overlapping realities.

In the cultural sphere, the wars have further undermined the modernist expectation that the artist could stand outside history and present universal forms detached from political content. Ukrainian artists, writers and musicians have found themselves compelled to bear witness to the suffering and resistance of their nation. The war has made the search for aesthetic purity appear hollow. Instead cultural expression has become rooted once again in memory, grief and the urgent task of preserving identity against attempted erasure. In this respect the Ukrainian experience has resurrected pre-modern understandings of culture as something bound to the survival of a community rather than the individual pursuit of innovation for its own sake.

A third dimension of modernism’s demise may be found in technology. Modernism believed that technological advancement would liberate humanity. Yet the wars in Ukraine have demonstrated that technology has not emancipated society but has been absorbed into the timeless logic of conflict. Drone warfare, digital surveillance, cyber attacks and mass information manipulation are not signs of a rational, modernist future but illustrations of an increasingly fragmented world in which the tools of modernity are used to reinforce old patterns of coercion. The modernist dream of a scientifically ordered civilisation, forged through new tools, has given way to a battle for survival in which the same tools serve entirely different ends.

Moreover the brutal reality of artillery, trenches, infantry assaults and attritional warfare has resurrected forms of conflict long thought confined to history. In the Ukrainian landscape one sees not the triumph of modern design, but the reappearance of warfare that would not have been unfamiliar to the soldiers of Verdun or the defenders of Warsaw in 1939. Modernism expected that the rationalisation of society would make such scenes obsolete. Instead the war has revealed that human beings remain tied to the same vulnerabilities, fears and instincts that shaped past centuries.

The death of modernism is also evident in the collapse of the idea that the future can be planned. Modernism was intimately linked to the philosophy of control. Whether in the hands of architects, urban planners, social theorists or political reformers, its guiding assumption was that one might design systems from the top down. Ukraine’s wartime experience has exposed the fragility of such thinking. The survival of the state has depended not upon central design but upon decentralised initiative, community resilience and the capacity of ordinary citizens to adapt. From volunteer networks supplying the front to the spontaneous flowering of civil society activity, the war has demonstrated that vitality comes not from rigid structures but from the organic strength of a people determined to survive.

Finally, perhaps the deepest failure of modernism lies in its attitude to memory. Modernism tended to treat memory as a burden holding society back from progress. The Ukrainian wars have shown instead that memory is the foundation of national identity and the source of moral strength. Ukraine’s resilience emerges from her historical experience: the memory of repression, famine and struggle; the recollection of past sacrifices; the long and often bitter history of her relationship with Russia. Far from being an obstacle to progress, this memory has become the anchor of her national determination. The war has reminded Europe that the past cannot be discarded. It shapes loyalties, fears and aspirations, and in moments of crisis it provides the metaphysical resources required for endurance.

Thus the death of modernism is not the triumph of some new ideology but the recognition that the assumptions of the previous century cannot contain the realities of the present. Ukraine’s wars have reintroduced the world to the power of identity, the persistence of historical memory, and the unpredictability of political events shaped by ambition and grievance rather than rational calculation. The modernist project, with its faith in universalism, purity and progress, has been revealed as insufficient.

Yet in this death there may be a form of renewal. The collapse of modernist illusions opens space for an understanding of human experience that is more modest, grounded and humane. Ukraine’s struggle has revealed the significance of community, the importance of dignity, and the enduring value of cultural memory. These are not modernist virtues. They are older, and perhaps wiser. They remind Europe that history is not something to be erased by design but something to be lived with, interpreted and carried.

In the light of war, modernism’s demise appears not as a tragedy but as a necessary reckoning. The world that modernism promised never arrived. The world that has emerged in its place is more complex, more fragile, and more deeply shaped by the truths of human nature. Ukraine stands at the centre of this transformation. In her suffering and her resilience one finds a vision of the twenty-first century that modernism could never have foreseen.