At the beginning of the war the State Archival Service of Ukraine (the government agency that implements archival policy) was careful with the idea of collection evacuation and it started this process slowly. For occupied or bombed regions it was dangerous both for people and for the collections. So, until now just the reading rooms of all Ukrainian archival institutions are closed for visitors and archival documents mostly kept in safer storage (but, unfortunately, because of long time budget economy, underground stores are not widely available.).
Such policy is also rather risky. The “main” archives in Kyiv and Lviv however are in safety. But I should report that the buildings of one of the biggest State Archive of Kharkiv Region, the premises of small departments in the most destroyed towns of Kyiv region, as Bucha, Borodianka or Irpin, and the south State Archive of Mykolaiv Region were damaged during bombing and shelling.
On the 25th of February we have already lost in fire unique documents about repressed Ukrainians, collected in archival department of Chernihiv Security Service of Ukraine. The Volnovakha Archive in east part of the country was occupied and the funds were transported to separatists ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’. Almost all the collections from Kherson (the south part of Ukraine) – were not able to be evacuated before occupation. Just all secret documents were destroyed by Ukrainian archivists during the first days of the war.
Unfortunately, only about 5 per cent of Ukrainian archive documents are digitized and digitization became a priority during the war. Thanks to colleagues from Poland, Czech Republic and Israel this digitizing policy started to be realized. The UK National Archives were the first during armed conflict who allowed to use their servers for downloading and coping of Ukrainian archive documents. The activity of the American corporation digitizing of genealogy docs Family Search has also increased in Ukraine from March. In turn, the State Archival Service of Ukraine presented already beta-version of the common web-site with electronic copies from different archives https://searcharchives.net.ua/
Archives are always more ‘closed’ institutions, the same as the largest national libraries, as Vernadsky Library, which renewed online services for readers from June. But smaller Ukrainians libraries became something like hubs during the war. Librarians in different parts of Ukraine cooked food for the soldiers and refugees, they wove camouflage nets and very often became coordinators in humanitarian headquarters for their towns. From the other hand, libraries organized literature exhibitions, lections or children’s entertainment. Also, the number of readers in libraries of the western Ukraine, where most of internally displaced persons were based, saw a great increase in usage.
I am sure a nation which is reading will always win people, as opposed to a nation which burns books and destroys libraries. From the beginning of the war we have sadly witnessed damage to one of the biggest Korolenko Kharkiv State Scientific Library, libraries in Chernihiv (beside them the architectural monument – the building of Regional Library for Youth) and in the eastern part of Ukraine (Sievierodonetsk, Starobilsk). Evidence of the censorship of Ukrainian books is also being gathered.
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.
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