Defense of Ukrainian art and culture from destruction
Workers take action to protect a lion statue in Odessa from Russian shelling September 16, 2022. (© Ivan Strahov/UNESCO)
The Ukrainian people and their supporters around the world are working to preserve Ukrainian culture and document the damage done by the Russian military.
For its part, the US State Department announced on February 23 that its Ukraine Cultural Heritage Response Initiative will invest $7 million to support Ukrainian efforts to protect Ukraine’s cultural heritage.
In cooperation with experts in Ukraine and international partners, the funds will help:
- Document damaged sites and collections.
- Protect plants and sites from damage and theft.
- Stabilize damaged areas.
- Offer specialist training.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture reports that Russian forces damaged more than 550 sites and objects important to Ukraine’s history and cultural identity.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion of the Kremlin last February, Russian forces have looted paintings, icons and sculptures from several museums. A December 2022 report by the Conflict Observatory, an independent research initiative supported by the US government, used satellite imagery to document the looting in Kherson. According to one count, the occupiers stole 15,000 paintings from the Oleksii Shovkunenko Art Museum in Kherson.
The Ukrainian Institute in Kyiv has published “Postcards from Ukraine” online, a series of photos and historical sketches of cultural institutions to show and demonstrate the damage done to Ukrainian culture by Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
“The destruction of our culture is the purpose of everything the Russians do,” said Marjana Varchuk, director of communications at the Khanenko Museum, in 2022. “That’s why the Russians are shelling our monuments, our museums and our history.”
Global efforts underway
As Ukrainians act to protect their cultural heritage, private and public organizations in the United States and around the world have also rallied to the cause.
Among the initiatives to protect Ukrainian culture:
- PEN America, a New York-based nonprofit, has established a $2.2 million fund to support visual artists in Ukraine.
- The J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles pledged $1 million to preserve museums, libraries, and archives.
- Google has created a digital archive, Ukraine is herewhich features more than 1,800 artifacts, 40 curated exhibitions with audio, 100 street views, and multiple virtual immersive galleries.
- The World Monuments Fund, a non-profit organization based in New York, launched an initiative to preserve endangered sites.
- The European Commission is providing 5 million euros to national cultural organizations and Ukrainian artists based outside their country.
- The international alliance for the protection of heritage in conflict zones, ALIPH, in Switzerland has invested almost 4 million US dollars to support over 260 cultural organizations preserving Ukrainian culture.
Since 2001, the United States has provided $1.7 million in support of 18 cultural preservation projects in Ukraine through the State Department’s Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation. Some examples are the support for the restoration of the Old Academic Building in Kiev and the Historical Museum of Lviv.
Commenting on how Russia’s attacks on culture have strengthened the spirit and global solidarity of Ukrainians, Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych said: “It’s quite ironic that every attempt by Russia to destroy Ukrainian culture has had the opposite effect.”
Priceless items at risk
The International Council of Museums has published a “red list” of 53 priceless cultural objects in Ukraine at risk of being stolen, looted or trafficked. The council hopes that by publishing the list, it will discourage individuals and collectors from taking items without researching their provenance.
Heritage categories on the list include:
- Rare books or manuscripts from the 13th century.
- Wooden or canvas icons with religious symbols.
- Paintings or drawings from the 19th and 20th centuries.
- textiles and costumes.
Commenting on Russia’s year-long invasion of Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “Putin’s first goal was to wipe Ukraine off the map, erase its identity, integrate it into Russia. That failed and will never succeed.”
