Unsettled Times: Music Discovery Reveals Divergent Cultural Responses to War

Societal disruption can lead to cultural innovation and transformation, but understanding how cultural practices such as music evolve in response to crisis remains a key challenge. Here, we investigate the impact of war on culture by analyzing millions of daily music discoveries across 1,423 cities in 53 countries during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Cultural responses varied significantly across countries, cities, and demographics. In Ukraine, the war triggered a rapid rise in local patriotic music, while in Russia, it led to a decline in engagement with local culture. In Belarus, despite its political alliance with Russia, we observed increased discovery of pro-Ukrainian music, suggesting resistance. Within-country variations were correlated with latent subnational socio-cultural divides between cities, indicating that local context and demographics shaped patterns of response. Despite these differences, cultural changes showed similar dynamics: they emerged rapidly, often within days of the invasion, and then remained stable for months. These divergent responses demonstrate the contingent and contextual nature of cultural change, challenging deterministic theories and revealing processes of cultural evolution that are otherwise hidden in peacetime.