Ironically, the very imposing Prague Congress Center where the 26e General Conference of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), from August 20 to 28, welcomed the very first refugees from the first days of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. However, the Ukrainian question has given rise to lively debate within this world organization of museums responsible for promoting and protecting cultural heritage.
Kateryna Chuyeva, Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, came to make a distressing observation: “We live in an atmosphere of total uncertainty, it is impossible to foresee anything under the Russian bombardments”assured the one who worked for twenty years in museums and co-founded that of Maidan. “The number of destructions is massive and thousands of buildings but also archaeological sites have been degraded”, she said. While specifying: “We have documented 468 cases of damage and destruction of cultural sites, 35 of which directly concern museums”, out of the 2,000 in the country. This is the case of the one dedicated to the Ukrainian philosopher and poet Grigori Skovoroda, the Arkhip Kuïndji Art Museum in Mariupol or that of Ivankiv, which housed 25 paintings by Maria Primachenko. Some of the works of art were able to be evacuated and hidden in towns located far from the front lines.
In cooperation with international institutions, the Ukrainian Ministry wishes “a register of such damage and loss in order to record war crimes”, she says. This made it possible to list 159 damaged churches or religious buildings, 6 cinemas, 44 libraries… This specialist in Greek and Roman antiquities does not hide the fact that “museums are used by Russians for propaganda purposes” in favor of the invasion.
Creating a Protocol
Russia attacks « Ukrainian identity and its European roots by attacking our heritage”, commented Vazyl Rozhko, director of the medieval Tustan fortress. Anastasiia Cherednychenko, vice-president of ICOM Ukraine and specialist in the digitization of collections, goes further: “This is barbaric destruction. The Russians violate all the rules of ethics. The destruction of cultural heritage in Ukraine is their sole responsibility. » She assures that some works have already been recovered by the Russians, “as they had already done in Georgia and Crimea, with complete impunity, without any reaction or international sanction”. In Mariupol, the Russian armed forces are said to have taken works of art kept in the Regional History Museum and the Museum of Arts.
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