Cultural heritage in crisis situations. What can we learn from the Ukrainian reality?
At the recent international conference "Protecting Cultural Heritage and Countering Cultural Erasure in Armed Conflict: New Challenges and Ukraine's Experience" in Kiev, Cultural Heritage Department specialists Ričardas Dediala and Gintaras Ivanavičius, reviewing all the presentations they have heard, argue that it is most important for everyone to realize the importance of digitization of the heritage now. "If heritage objects are not digitized and are destroyed in a crisis situation, you don't even know what you have lost", they said.
As the Cultural Heritage Department specialists who attended the conference said, it is now clear that this war is not just about territories. The war is also about the destruction of Ukrainian identity, culture, cultural heritage, the rewriting of historical narratives and the attempt to assimilate the nation. That is why the destruction of heritage must also be given great attention in the context of war.
The conference session "Documentation of Crimes against Cultural Heritage: problems of law, policy and methodology" was presented by Ričardas Dediala, Chief Specialist of the Coordination Unit of the Cultural Heritage Department. The conference was also attended by Gintaras Ivanavičius, Chief Specialist of the Operational Coordination Division of the Cultural Heritage Department, and Auksė Ūsienė, Advisor to the Strategic Communication Department of the Lithuanian Armed Forces.
R. Dediala presented the cultural heritage in Lithuania, which is used by Russia for aggressive propaganda and dissemination of propaganda narratives (graves of soldiers, monuments in cemeteries glorifying the Soviet Union, monuments in public places). Lithuania's historical experience with the destruction of its cultural heritage during the Soviet era was also presented.
During the conference, at the personal request of the representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, the Lithuanian administrative system for the protection of cultural heritage was also presented, and the activities and responsibilities of the Scientific Archaeological Commission, the Restoration Council, and the Evaluation Councils were introduced. According to the KPD specialists, Ukraine's heritage community is already looking intensively to the West, to Lithuania, studying, consulting, and are very concerned about the situation of their cultural heritage in the context of the ongoing war.
Author: Jūrate Mičiulienė