Elements of Ukrainian nationalism occur in some of Silvestrov's works, most notably in his choral work "Diptych". This work sets the strongly patriotic words of Taras Shevchenko's 1845 poem "Testament (Заповіт)", which has a significant national status in Ukraine, and Silvestrov dedicated it in 2014 to the memory of Sergey Nigoyan, an Armenian-Ukrainian who died in the 2014 Hrushevskoho Street riots and is believed to have been the first casualty of the events that led to the Euromaidan.