In the quiet halls of the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder), the silence of the gallery stands in stark contrast to the violence captured in its frames. Throughout February and March, the university hosted the War destroys monuments photo exhibition, a haunting visual chronicle documenting the systematic erosion of Ukraine’s cultural landscape.
The exhibition features a curated selection of images from the “War destroys monuments” category of the annual Wiki Loves Monuments Ukraine contest, organized by Wikimedia Ukraine. By bringing these images to a German academic setting, the project transforms a digital archive into a physical confrontation with the costs of conflict—costs that extend far beyond the immediate human toll to include the erasure of historical memory.
According to the most recent data from Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture, Russian forces have destroyed or damaged 1,685 cultural heritage sites since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. The exhibition serves as a testament to this destruction, illustrating how the targeting of architecture and art is often a deliberate attempt to strip a population of its cultural foundation and historical continuity.
Documenting the Architecture of Loss
The exhibition presents 20 photographs that span various regions of Ukraine, each representing a specific point of failure in the protection of global heritage. Among the works are the remains of the wooden Church of the Nativity of the Theotokos in Viazivka village, Zhytomyr Oblast, which was reduced to ruins by Russian shelling on March 7, 2022. Another striking image captures “The Store,” a historical landmark on Constitution Square in Kharkiv, scarred by a missile strike on March 2, 2022.
These images are more than mere records of damage; they are evidence of a broader pattern. The authors of the exhibition note that the photographs tell a visual story of the toll on cultural heritage, including places of worship, educational institutions, libraries, and theaters. They describe the collection as “four years of documenting crimes against Ukrainian civilians and cultural heritage.”
The Symbolic Toll of Cultural Erasure
The initiative was driven by Renata Hanynets, a doctoral candidate at the Chair of Heritage Studies at the European University Viadrina and a staff member of the Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies Frankfurt (Oder) – Berlin (KIU). Hanynets argues that even as the world focuses on humanitarian catastrophes and infrastructure collapse, the loss of cultural heritage often remains in the shadows.
“War destroys not just buildings – it destroys memory, historical continuity, and cultural identity. The destruction of heritage is an attempt to strip a community of its cultural foundation. The idea for the exhibition arose from the need to show that behind every ruin there is a story – architectural, artistic, human – that matters to us,” says Renata Hanynets.
This symbolic loss is exemplified by the ongoing vulnerability of Lviv’s historic center. Included on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998, the city was added to the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2023. The urgency of this preservation effort was highlighted on March 24, 2026, when a Russian drone strike hit a building near the 17th-century Bernardine Monastery, part of a massive aerial assault on the city.
A Hub for Memory in Frankfurt (Oder)
The choice of Frankfurt (Oder) as a venue for the War destroys monuments photo exhibition is deeply strategic. The city has become a sanctuary for a significant number of Ukrainian refugees, and the European University Viadrina provides a unique academic infrastructure to process this trauma. The university hosts the only Chair for the Entangled History of Ukraine in Germany, alongside a Chair of Heritage Studies and the newly established KIU network.
The logistical journey of the exhibition mirrored the hardships of the people it documents. Hanynets noted that the exhibition layout was designed during blackouts in Ukraine, with contributors relying on power banks to finish the work. The final display was made possible through a grant from the student organization ASTA, which provides financial support for projects of significant cultural value.
By bridging the gap between the digital documentation of Wikimedia Ukraine and the academic rigor of Viadrina University, the exhibition ensures that these losses are not merely statistics in a report, but visible wounds in the shared history of Europe.
As the results of the October 2025 Wiki Loves Monuments contest are finalized, the movement to document these sites continues to expand. The next phase of the project will focus on integrating these visual records into broader international efforts to hold perpetrators accountable for the destruction of cultural property under the Hague Convention.
We invite you to share your thoughts on the role of cultural preservation in conflict zones in the comments below.
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