Protecting Ukrainian Cultural Heritage During the Russo-Ukrainian War: Reflections of Experts for the Project “City and War”

Abstract

The Russo-Ukrainian War has led to the greatest destruction and damage to Ukraine’s cultural heritage since World War II. The war became a trigger for a rethinking of the meaning of cultural heritage in Ukrainian society, and caused a “turn” in attitudes towards culture more generally. Recognizing the complexity and importance of these developments, in May 2022 a group of researchers at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University launched the academic project “City and War”. One of the project’s objectives was to capture the views of cultural experts on the ongoing processes of destruction, preservation, and reinterpretation of cultural heritage in Ukraine driven by the Russian military aggression. To accomplish this task, the project team is collecting in-depth interviews with representatives of the Ukrainian expert community. The paper analyzes experts’ reflections on several key issues: 1) systemic problems in cultural heritage protection in Ukraine; 2) challenges faced by the field during the Russo-Ukrainian War, in particular since the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022; 3) strategies for safeguarding cultural heritage in wartime; 4) the use of digital technologies in cultural heritage protection during the Russo-Ukrainian War. The article concludes that the interviews collected for the project offer testimony important for understanding the pre-war specifics of the field and the current state and future prospects of cultural heritage preservation and reinterpretation in Ukraine. At the same time, it is noted that cultural experts should be more proactive in broadcasting their vision of the pressing problems of cultural heritage protection, and should strive to make their views more accessible to the general public. It is important that experts effectively interact with other social actors and that they not only react to public demand, but also take on a more assertive role in the public discussion around heritage and, to a certain extent, guide the public opinion.