Cultural Heritage of Ukraine in the Conditions of the Russo-Ukrainian War: Causes and Consequences of Armed Aggression
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/uhj2024.06.044Keywords:
Russo-Ukrainian war, cultural heritage, public space, decommunization, decolonization, de-Russification, museum, monumentAbstract
The goal is to analyze the state of immovable cultural heritage in the conditions of the Russo-Ukrainian war of 2014—2024. The modern war, aimed at the destruction of the Ukrainian people and Ukraine as a state, has actualized several problems, including in the humanitarian sphere. In the conditions of Russian aggression, which is an existential threat to the Ukrainian people, state policy in the field of culture becomes an important factor in ensuring the national security of Ukraine, and the preservation of cultural heritage is one of the main elements of identity formation and preservation of historical memory.
The scientific novelty consists in the study of the state of the cultural heritage of Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian war, the rethinking of the historical past, the analysis of the processes of decommunization, decolonization, and de-Sovietization in the public space, which significantly intensified after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The methodological basis of the study is the principles of historical analysis and scientific objectivity, the problem-chronological method.
Conclusions. The hybrid war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine since 2014 and the full-scale aggression on February 24, 2022, made the topic of cultural heritage and the extent of the loss of the national cultural heritage of Ukraine relevant to Ukrainian society. The obliteration and destruction of historical and cultural monuments is not only material damage but also an attempt to undermine the moral spirit of Ukrainians, to destroy the history and past of the Ukrainian people engraved in the monuments. After the end of the war, in parallel with the reconstruction of Ukraine’s economy, housing, and critical infrastructure, the main directions in the field of culture will be the preservation of cultural property, development of a strategy for its restoration with the involvement of state institutions and international organizations UNESCO, ICOMOS, ICOM, cultural diplomacy, information of the world community about the damages and losses caused by the aggressor country to the cultural heritage of Ukraine, development of a mechanism for their evaluation and determination of the amount of compensation. Russian aggression against Ukraine caused a wave of opposition from civil society, which inspired the process of dismantling some memorial objects related to the history and culture of the Russian Federation, the decommunization of Ukrainian toponyms, and the cleansing of public space from markers of imperial claims to Ukrainian lands. Systemic decommunization and decolonization, the understanding of the Soviet experience is the key to Ukrainian society’s resistance to the doctrine of the Russian world and the creation of a Ukrainian world with the inclusion of monuments to prominent Ukrainian figures, important events in the history of Ukraine, which corresponds to the main content of Ukraine’s humanitarian policy.
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