From the beginning of the war not only authorities, but also a number of NGOs, began to document evidence of Russian crimes against infrastructural objects. One important example is the volunteer initiative Anti-Corruption Headquarters which has already calculated over 1,900 different levels of destruction to objects. It is also important to understand, according to Ministry of Culture information, that a fifth of these objects – about 400 – belong to culture heritage.
The state Ukrainian Cultural Foundation has created the map of cultural losses. On this map you can see that cultural sites were mostly damaged in Chernihiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kyiv regions, where fighting and bombing were most active. Most of the destroyed objects are ancient buildings and churches. It looks like the oldest damaged cultural properties (beside the ‘kurgans’, described in the previous report) are the Transfiguration Cathedral, Church of St. Eliah and Yelets Monastery based in Chernihiv and dating back to XI-XII century.
Different places of worship have also been attacked – including religious cemeteries, synagogues, mosques, Protestant, Roman Catholic and, most commonly, Ukraine Orthodox churches with one of the famous symbols of Chernihiv – St. Catherine’s Church (1715). Even one of the biggest citadel of Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow patriarchate) – Sviatohirsk Lavra — has suffered in the last months because of proximity to the front line.
Safely moving the monuments is complicated. Today we already have our successful practice, how to do it in the best way. Ukrainian architects created the Re:Ukraine. Monuments project with detailed instructions on creating safe and aesthetic ‘shelters’ for the monuments. Unfortunately, such complete protection began to be realized in different cities rather late. So, dozens of Ukrainian monuments have already suffered damaged. Paradoxically, maybe because of the huge amount of them, the majority of destroyed monuments are from the Soviet time and dedicated to the Second World War. But there are also other specific monuments I shall to report about.
One of them is the Menora of Holocaust memorial complex ‘Drobytskyi Yar’ in Kharkiv region. Another example is rather sensitive. A bullet hit exactly the sculpture head of Taras Shevchenko (the most famous Ukrainian poet) in Borodyanka, Kyiv region, with the pedestal partly destroyed and just the poetry text left on it. The same with the Shevchenko monument. The small ceramic rooster figurine from a kitchen cabinet miraculously survived on the wall otherwise totally destroyed by bombing in the Borodyanka house. This already became a symbol of Ukrainian resilience. These ceramic cockerels were produced by the factory in Vasylkiv (also damaged town in Kyiv region), during the days after publication about Borodyanka were sold out. By the way, this was exactly the souvenir Boris Johnson received from a passerby woman during his recent visit to Kyiv.
As I reported, a lot of archaeological monuments, museums, libraries, archives, monuments, clubs and cinemas are damaged during the war in Ukraine. But one the biggest tragedy was the bombing of Donetsk Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol on the 16th of March 2022. As a result, not only an architectural monument from the second half of the 20th century was totally destroyed, but about 600 people (including children), who used a shelter space of the theater, died. And if it is possible to rebuild the theater and the city at all (Italy and Greece has already announced financial support of such initiative), it will remain impossible to return the lives of those killed by the Russian army.
This report was written by Viktor Sobiianskyi, a Ukrainian culture manager and theatre curator. He is a graduate of the Karpenko-Kary Kyiv National University of Theater, Cinema and Television and project manager of the Polish Institute in Kyiv. His work includes The Workshops of Polish Choreographs, Directors and Playwrights, The Festival of Young Ukrainian Directors and international workshops, supported by British Council, Czech Center and Austrian Forum.
ICOM UK has commissioned Viktor Sobiianskyi, a Ukrainian cultural manager, to write a series of reports on how the current armed conflict has impacted Ukrainian museums, theatres and creative life.
The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author.
;
