Ukraine Urban Recovery (part 9): Russia’s Attacks on Ukrainian Culture
Brutal Catalyst: What Ukraine’s Cities Tell Us About Recovery From War, available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJ8Q7BGJ
A continuation of discussions drawing on Brutal Catalyst: What Ukraine’s Cities Tell Us About Recovery From War, released October 8, 2024.
Transfiguration Cathedral in Odesa after Russian missile attack, July 23, 2023, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Transfiguration_Cathedral_in_Odesa_after_Russian_missile_attack,_2023-07-23_(22).jpg (used with permission of mvs.gov.ua)
In the WWII days of March 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke to an American Library Association convention audience. “Books cannot be killed by fire,” he pronounced. “People die, but books never die.” [Susan Orlean, The Library Book (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 202] Yet the value of books as purveyors of truths and opposing viewpoints threatens those with no interest in any but their own agendas. Efforts to erase cultural landmarks from the ground, and thereby minds, included burning almost two hundred libraries in Bosnia-Herzegovina and destroying 90 percent of the books and other collections in the National Library of Sarajevo during the late 20th-century war in that country. One observer thought it “the most books in human history destroyed at one time.” [Kateryna Kozlova, “A Facelift Worth Billions: Urbanist on Why Post-war Restoration of Sarajevo Only Made It Worse,” Bird in Flight, June, 17 2022, https://birdinflight.com/en/architectura-2/20220617-sarajevo-after-war.html] Libraries were not alone in being targeted by Serbian military forces. Other cultural sites included a Habsburg-period villa housing the Olympic Museum and Oriental Institute with its irreplaceable Ottoman-era manuscripts.
Ukrainians suffering Russian occupation can relate. Russia too seeks to culturally cleanse, monuments and other structures meaningful to Ukraine’s population being among the targets. As in Sarajevo, libraries are eminent among them. In December 2023, the British publication Labour Hub reported,
In the occupied territories, Russians are deliberately seizing and destroying Ukrainian literature that they consider “extremist.” Such literature includes school textbooks on the history of Ukraine, scientific and popular historical literature…. The destruction of Ukrainian literature is part of a broader programme of cultural erasure, which includes the looting and destruction of museums. It is aimed at suppressing any sense of Ukrainian cultural identity. [from “Russia’s war on Ukraine’s libraries,” Labour Hub (December 21, 2023), https://labourhub.org.uk/2023/12/21/russias-war-on-ukraines-libraries/]
Cultural touchstones other than books are also among the losses. Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported thefts from two Kherson museums and the Kherson Regional National Archive in addition to items taken from the city’s cathedral before the Ukrainian military ousted Russian forces in late 2022. HRW’s Belkis Wille summarized the losses as “systematic looting” and part of “an organized operation to rob Ukrainians of their national heritage.” [“Ukraine: Russians Pillage Kherson Cultural Institutions: Art and Artifacts Stolen,” Human rights Watch, December 20, 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/12/20/ukraine-russians-pillage-kherson-cultural-institutions] Another source described thefts that included ancient weaponry, jewelry, and 18th-century religious items. The Russians admitted having stolen the bone fragments of Grigory Potemkin from St. Catherine’s Cathedral in late October, a military commander who is a favorite of Putin (as he was of Catherine the Great).
Ukrainians elsewhere endured—and continue to endure—Russian desecration as well. Occupying forces reportedly stole paintings and other items from Mariupol’s Museum of Folk Life, Kuindzhi Art Museum, and Museum of Local Lore and History, carting them away in trucks to destinations unknown. Mariupol has also proved no exception to the occupiers renaming streets, replacing monuments, and experiencing other Russian-imposed changes. The once Avenue of Peace became Lenin Avenue. Signs denoting entry into the city display Moscow’s preferred spelling and the red, white, and blue of Russia’s flag. Putin signed a decree declaring Mariupol a “City of Military Glory.” For Mariupol, now well into its third year under Russian occupation, Kherson’s experiences in “only” eight months under such circumstances do not bode well.
Russia’s attacks also impose on day-to-day matters that span the spectrum of social, economic, and cultural implications. Replacing Ukrainian passports with those Russian is reportedly mandatory for drawing pensions in occupied areas. The passports are also necessary to open bank accounts, obtain business licenses, wed, obtain a death certificate, or register a vehicle. Changes to school curriculums promote a Russian view of the world. Textbooks portray Ukraine’s government as Nazi-led (particularly ironic given President Zelensky being Jewish). Russian is the dictated language for teaching. The attacks on education could prove hard to reverse, especially when an occupation is lengthy given it is the young who are primary targets. In addition to addressing years of educational disinformation, counter-approaches in de-occupied cities will have to deal with falsehoods without undermining the legitimacy of teachers and teaching.
Restoration of culturally-significant structures will also pose challenges. The process has brought forth a multitude of conflicting approaches through the ages. Briefly returning to our opening example of Sarajevo, Architect Lebbeus Woods suggested devastated landmarks be restored with parts remaining as testimony to war’s damage done. Critics countered that such daily reminders would unsettle residents. For them, repairs should be less a source of remembrance than what should be. Perhaps these critics also believed repairs made to buildings better healed and tamped ethnic tensions than would unmended sores. Fortunately, Ukraine will be able to draw on lessons from Sarajevo and elsewhere in melding historical preservation and meeting intentions to include sustainable development as they recover from Russian urban despoliation. A third of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites are in urban areas planet-wide. Four of Ukraine’s eight are so; a fifth is the ancient city of Tauric Chersonese on the Black Sea in Crimea. UNESCO’s 2011 Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape promotes “a holistic approach to managing historic urban areas.” The voluntary program provides recommendations regarding civic engagement, planning, regulation, and financing in support of historical preservation, dealing with climate change, and sustainability. Ukrainians have firm foundations on which to rebuild and, fortunately, many willing to assist as they do so.
…Next time: Of Mines and Metrics
Previous trivia question: In keeping with questions related to lettering on Normandy American Cemetery grave markers, why do some have sand rubbed into their lettering?
Answer: Those maintaining Normandy American Cemetery will at times allow individuals visiting the grave of a relative or friend to rub some sand from a Normandy beach into the letters on the grave marker of the individual being visited.
Next question: Why did the Allied forces going ashore on D-Day at Normandy land when tides were low (and thus much more beach was exposed and had to be covered before reaching cover) rather than high tide or thereabouts?
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Russell W. Glenn, Brutal Catalyst: What Ukraine’s Cities Tell Us About Recovery From War (Boulder, CO: KeyPoint Press, 2024). Available in hardback, paperback, and eBook at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJ8Q7BGJ.
For media inquiries and review copies, email: editor@keypointpress.com
Discover more about the war in Ukraine and recovery at: www.ukrainecities.com
KeyPointPress: www.keypointpress.com
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