Втрати української культури у російсько-українській війні: культурно-інформаційний спротив

Abstract

The authors explored the activity of mass media and cultural organizations aimed at clarification of the current problematic issue – preservation of Ukrainian cultural heritage under the conditions of the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine. The authors emphasize that occupants not only destroy historic buildings, i.e. material objects, but also steal art values, destroy library and archive funds; their actions are aimed at destruction of our spirituality, identity and history. It is pointed out that there are the main streams in the work of journalists, experts, and culture figures, namely: fixation of losses, propaganda of the Ukrainian culture in the world, expert evaluation of the restitution possibilities, and filling of the culture material with patriotic sense. The full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022 led to the numerous loss of life, ruination of the military, civil and infrastructure objects. But the state-aggressor destroys and robs our culture in this war. Since the beginning of the war mass media have been actively informing about the situation in the regions, which happened to be at the line of the Russian troops attack. The information was in particular about the fact that different educational establishments, libraries and their funds, museums with valuable collections, theatres, religious buildings and historic buildings had been ruined. To tell the truth the information was incomplete due to the limited opportunities to monitor the situation. However, later it has been systematized. The work of journalists and experts contributed to this since they stated the criminal acts of Russia, informing about the ruination facts of historic, sacral, cultural monuments, devastation of many museum collections, destruction of library and archive funds. Digitalization of the Russian war crimes against Ukrainian culture became one more important work aimed at preservation of the Ukrainian cultural heritage. It was done by means of interactive maps of the Ukrainian cultural losses and it enables documenting crimes of the occupant army and spreading this information at the international level. Key words: culture, cultural front, cultural losses, cultural values, cultural heritage, war, media.