Culture wars: the fight to save Ukraine’s art
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What cultural heritage is being threatened in Ukraine?
This is The Guardian.
Today the art and the artists under attack in Ukraine.
Here's what's happening tonight. The Soviets are saying little, but what is known is cause for concern. A nuclear accident has occurred at a Soviet atomic plant in the Ukraine.
In 1986, reactor four of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. It triggered the worst nuclear accident in history.
It's really, really hard to overstate what a huge effect that catastrophe had on Ukraine.
We were recently stricken by a disaster. the Chernobyl nuclear power accident.
How did the Chernobyl disaster shape Ukraine's identity?
It deeply affected the Soviet people and disturbed world opinion.
It was one of those events that absolutely contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It's a sort of foundational event in the future independent Ukraine's sense of itself.
Exactly 40 years later, on the 26th of April this year, the Chornobyl Museum reopened in Kiev after going through a huge renovation to make sure it truly commemorated the impact of the disaster.
It had transformed itself, thinking about all the people who were affected by the disaster, and that was a lot of people, because thousands of people were displaced, for example.
This is Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian's chief culture writer. She was in Ukraine on a reporting trip in the south at the time of the reopening, and she was planning on visiting the museum as soon as she returned to Kyiv. And the thing is, I never saw it. Just three weeks after the reopening, on the night of the 23rd of May, the museum was bombed, part of a huge combined missile strike by the Russians, one of the biggest attacks on the capital so far.
We've already seen missiles going into the city.
What happened to the Chornobyl Museum shortly after its reopening?
There's also the sound of anti-aircraft fire in the background there and the buzz of drones above us.
Charlotte visited what was left of the building a few days later.
I had not expected being in that destroyed museum to be quite so upsetting.
And considering the fact that I've been working on the restoration project and the recent collection for the last three years, you can imagine what a powerful impact it made on me.
The museum director was standing in the middle of this collapsing, burnt out building, kind of clutching a brown painted earthenware jug with some patterning on it. A traditional piece of ceramic from the region where Chernobyl is.
Okay, so while the rescuers were kind of digging up the ceiling between the first and second floor, they found this jar from Polisa, which is, as you can see, it's like a small miracle.
She was actually deeply in shock. They reckon that they were able to save 40% of the artefacts on display. Every time a museum artefact is destroyed, it means the loss of a singular object that holds memory and knowledge.
How has the war impacted Ukrainian artists and cultural sites?
And once it's gone, it's gone.
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have lost their lives. Homes flattened. Cities turned to rubble. But there's been another cost. Ukrainian culture is also under attack. Thousands of museums, galleries, historic landmarks across the country have been destroyed or damaged. Artists, filmmakers, writers and poets have been killed. Countless works of art have been lost. And the attacks appear to be increasing.
What efforts are being made to save Ukraine's cultural heritage?
Just this week, Russia bombed one of the oldest and most precious religious sites in the centre of Ukraine in what the government said was a targeted attack. From The Guardian, I'm Annie Kelly. Today in Focus, the race to save Ukraine's cultural heritage. Charlotte Higgins, you're The Guardian's chief culture writer and your book, Ukrainian Lessons Art in a Time of War, is out in August. Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, you have visited the country many times. And you know, you're not a war correspondent, you're a culture writer and a critic. So what keeps drawing you back to Ukraine, despite the obvious danger?
I went for the first time in October 2022 in order to write what I imagined would be one article about the way artists were reflecting and documenting the war in their work.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What cultural heritage is being threatened in Ukraine?
0:00–0:56
2
How did the Chernobyl disaster shape Ukraine's identity?
0:56–2:11
3
What happened to the Chornobyl Museum shortly after its reopening?
2:11–3:55
4
How has the war impacted Ukrainian artists and cultural sites?
3:55–4:36
5
What efforts are being made to save Ukraine's cultural heritage?
4:36–5:50
6
How are citizens responding to the destruction of cultural artefacts?
5:50–6:39
7
What role does language play in the cultural identity of Ukraine?
6:39–7:54
8
How is the decolonization of Ukraine influencing cultural narratives?
7:54–28:18
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Today in Focus
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