'We are the fascists you have been warned about," says Nastasia Pustova, sitting in the Paravoz bar in Kiev. The people in Paravoz are not the members of the minority Svoboda party, with their swastika-lite logo, who have become the poster children of the Ukrainian conflict for the Russian media, keen to push the idea of the country's post-revolution government as neo-Nazis, or a "fascist junta". Instead, those sitting in this chic bar – where one wall shows a projection that makes it look as though you are riding a train – are young, hip music types – among them Sophie Villy, an up-and-coming Ukrainiain singer-songwriter, fresh from appearing at SXSW in Texas – who have been forced to take sides by events in their country.

"We are at war," says Oleh Skrypka, one of Ukraine's biggest rock and folk stars. His band Vopli Vidoplyasova – who started out as an edgy ska-punk outfit, but have moved into exploring psychedelia and Ukrainian folk – played in Hyde Park during the London Olympics. He explains that Ukraine – which, for hundreds of years, has been subject to invasion and rule by neighbouring countries – has a deep love of freedom. "My role is as a singer," he says, "but if the Russians come, I will take up arms. Everyone will." Given his career as a purveyor of arty, intelligent pop, it's a little like hearing Jarvis Cocker say he will be investing in a Kalashnikov. In fact, Skrypka was born in Tajikistan and spent his youth in Murmansk in the north of Russia before studying in Kiev. But he, like several others I meet in Kiev, says he has adopted a new nationality: "I made an existential decision to become Ukrainian." (In fact, one of the spurs for the revolution was a posting by an Afghan-born but Kiev-based journalist, Mustafa Nayem, who called on Ukrainians to gather to protest at the govennment's decision to delay on agreeing closer ties with the EU.)

When the government of President Victor Yanukovych was deposed, there was an initial wave of euphoria, which swiftly dissipated as Russian separatists made their presence felt, as Crimea was lost, as lives were lost. But among the original heroes of the Maidan Revolution – named after the EuroMaidan – literally Euro Square – in central Kiev, which was the focus for the protests – were Dakh Daughters. They were in among the revolutionaries, singing at the barricades and on hastily erected stages. You can find YouTube videos of "the Spice Girls with Molotov cocktails" at the EuroMaidan, singing to massed ranks of military and police, and a delirious crowd.

Those who were there remember a chaotic atmosphere of creativity at Maidan, with performance art pieces acting almost as mirrors to the police. There were people dressed as superheroes (Darth Vader just ran for Mayor of Kiev), a motley crew of democrats, idealists and, yes, nationalists. There were dispossessed people involved, but Tanya Hawrylyuk of Dakh Daughters says she was struck by the sight of a well-heeled woman wearing an expensive fur coat driving up in a Porsche and throwing tyres from her boot on to the barricades.

Reading this on mobile. Please click here

Dakh Daughters are less Spice Girls, says their "artistic director" Vlad Troitsky, "more Pussy Riot – with good music". They are genuinely original – mixing classical minimalism with passionate Ukrainian folk and a touch of "freak cabaret", delivered with punk energy. As far as lyrics go, they also have an original approach: essentially sampling words from the most inspiring and relevant places they know. One of their "hits" (they have yet to release a record) is a version of Shakespeare's Sonnet 35, reworked as The Rose of Donbass (where armed separatists barred people from voting in the national elections last Sunday). Other songs steal lyrics from everyone from beat poet Charles Bukowski to notable Ukrainian writers such as Taras Shevchenko.

Dakh Daughters' pianist Hawrylyuk admits to being among those making Molotov cocktails when the snipers started firing in to the crowd at the EuroMaidan in February ("although I didn't actually throw any"). She also helped feed the revolutionaries, organise volunteers and sang not just with the group but as her solo project Tanya Tanya. For her, though, what's happening in Ukraine isn't just about nationality – she says it's important for Ukraine, as it tries to find a balance between Russia and Europe, to address the loaded issue of sexual politics and the different meanings of freedom. She notes a "lack of joy" in both "the puritanism of the west and the repressiveness of the east". She cheerfully talks of her last affair with an artist and his wife. When I ask whether she really wants that to appear in an article, she replies: "Yes, of course, why not?" That theme is echoed by Oksana Forostina, the editor of Krytyca – Kiev's equivalent to the London Review of Books – who talks of Kiev's long bohemian history, pointing out it was a Ukrainian who brought cabaret to Paris, and that Ukrainian women had property rights before their UK counterparts. "It makes me furious that eastern European women are caricatured and denigrated by their appearance – for wearing high heels and skirts, for example," she says. "The liberals wouldn't dare to do that to a Muslim woman who wore a veil." When she goes abroad she says she has to dress down to be taken seriously by her intellectual peers. (Incidentally, there are several openly gay singers in Kiev such as Anatoly Belov, who would have a much tougher time in Moscow.)

The issue of how involved musicians should be in Ukraine's uprising became a vexed one, and the decisions the artists made had differing consequences for them. Some artists saw their popularity increase by backing the revolution, such as the rock star Slavik Vakarchuk, whose band Ocean Elzy were early supporters of the Maidan protests. The hip-hop band TNMK played a lot of shows in support of the protesters, while other musicians involved themselves more directly: Boombox's frontman Andriy Hlyvnyuk acted as a medic and driver. "I didn't feel like playing," says jazz pianist Ilya Yeresko, of the salsa band Los Dislocados (the Dislocated). He gave up music for the duration to help out, because "I discovered for the first time there was something more important than music."

Reading this on mobile. Please click here

Some contributed musically – and again non-Ukrainians helped lead the charge, with two Belarus artists recording songs that became "hits" of the revolution. The rapper Vozhyk ("hedgehog") recorded a deeply sarcastic tune from the point of view of a Russian explaining the need to save Ukraine from the Ukrainians, for fear they would all become gay if they moved closer to the EU, while the band Lyapis Trubetskoy released the more conventionally stirring Warriors of Light.

Others, though, stayed away. Skrypka says Vopli Vidoplyasova didn't play at the Maidan because "I could see there would be violence and didn't want to encourage fans to come and be responsible for possible deaths." His critics reply that he either lacked the nerve or was hedging his bets on who would win. The brilliant young classical composer Alexei Shmurak didn't play because "I didn't want to become an internet meme", although he does say the energy of crowds here and at the Orange Revolution in 2004 "made me realise I was not alone. It shook me out of a depression." What is unnerving for him is that his projects with Russians have been cancelled, because as a supporter of the revolution he was accused of being a fascist. "I even know Russian parents who have disowned their son who lives in Kiev for supporting a Nazi regime," he says.

Some of these musical idealists believe the best way to counter the accusation that Ukraine is a country of fascists is to construct a believable democratic narrative for the new Kiev. "We may have an army on the border, fighting in the east, and the economy may be about to collapse," Vlad Troitsky admits, but he believes Kiev can be a cultural centre offering something better than "the tired, old culture of Europe" or Russia, which is trying to run the clock back to the glory days of empire. Already Kiev is seeing an influx of oppressed artists, musicians and intellectuals from Russia, and Troitsky thinks that trend will continue. Kiev could be the new Berlin.

Reading this on mobile? Please click here

Certainly, the events in Ukraine mean art in the country actually stands for something. In Kiev, there are several exhibitions fizzing with work that takes on social and political subjects with imagination and humour: Georg Schöllhammer, the curator of the next Kiev Biennale, entitled the School of Kiev, talks of "art with meaning" as opposed to the western art world, which, he says, is "mainly about money".

I spend one morning walking through the Maidan with Kiev's brilliant musical export Dakha Brakha, the "ethno-chaos" band who will play in the UK at the Womad festival in July. The barricades are still up in the square, made of bins, sandbags, shoes, street signs and piles of tyres. As the journalist Peter Pomeranzev puts it: "It almost looks as if the fabric of the city had risen up and rebelled … Rubbish has become a symbol of resistance and sacrifice."

Dakha Brakha's music has a Talking Heads-ish intelligence about it, a mixing of richly soulful Ukrainian singing and modern, global arrangements that include African rhythms and slyly funky basslines. I see them perform a newly composed soundtrack to a version of the 1930 film Earth by the Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko. "It's relevant today because of what is promised and what actually happened," the band say, before picking up the theme of the other musicians I have spoken to – that this is a feminine land, out of which a new country can be born.

Dakha Brakha didn't play as much at the Maidan as Dakh Daughters and some of the other bands, partly because of their higher international profile. "We were travelling a lot as representatives of Maidan abroad," says Marko Halenevych of the group. He was also nervous about how their distinctly Ukrainian songs might be misinterpreted. "Our music is a kind of soul music and not nationalistic, although very often Ukrainian folk music is interpreted that way," he says. "We never wanted people to raise their patriotism so they would act aggressively."

And through it all, life – and music – goes on. One night I go to an illegal club playing industrial techno, where the biggest danger isn't caused by the likelihood of political violence, but from the fact the place stinks of petrol, everyone is smoking, and there's only one exit. At 4am I was invited to an apartment party, we sped eastwards – where several journalists have been kidnapped – for 30 or 40 minutes with people I had never met and a brief flash of paranoia took hold. But it was good to see the edge of the city. Twenty floors up in one of those Soviet brutalist blocks, some film and music students were sitting around discussing Godard and Dakha Brakha. What happened on the Maidan was "a non-reversible event", said one. It had unleashed all kinds of energies and sent a creative, electric jolt through the city. "We will be all right, you think?" someone asked me on the balcony, as the huge tankers rolled on the road below and the sun came up, with mists rising on the fertile, green Ukrainian countryside in the distance.

• This article was amended on 27 May 2014 to correct the attribution of a quote in the opening paragraph.