When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, there was a nearly universal outpouring of support for the latter and condemnation for the former, but it was hard to contemplate what beyond thoughts and prayers anyone could offer. It was and is a fraught geopolitical situation, but the need to support a burgeoning liberal democracy against the forces of a hulking autocracy stirred something within many American souls that most of us perhaps believed had withered in the cynicism of the age. In the weeks following, people did what they could: We changed Twitter backgrounds and hung the blue and yellow of Ukraine from our flagpoles. We wore their colors (not a tough ask, since the combination is virtually identical to Nashville’s unofficial civic colors). And on March 8, joined by Michael W. Smith, Vanderbilt student and Ukrainian national Diana Nalyvaiko stood in front of 17,000-plus Predators fans — mostly clad, of course, in her nation’s colors, if for no other reason than the Predators had the good fortune of wearing similar ones — and gave a soul-stirring rendition of her country’s anthem. Nashville, rightly, boasts of having the best anthem performances in pro sports, but this one wasn’t just about the art, though the art was great — it was about the moment.
