Abstract
This paper is a short summary of the experiences from the first one and a half years of support to the Ukrainian cultural heritage sector from the international volunteer network SUCHO (Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online). The paper first outlines the current situation in Ukraine in the shadow of the full-scale Russian invasion and then focuses on the role of grassroots movements and the different forms of support provided by SUCHO. Finally, the paper discusses some key experiences from these efforts and addresses ideas for further support.
“I know they want us, Ukrainian writers, to disappear…they target the Ukrainian culture”.
Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina on X (formerly Twitter) following the devastating Russian drone attacks on Kyiv on October 10, which destroyed or damaged a wide range of historic buildings and heritage institutions, including the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine (Amelina, 2022).
What is taking place in Ukraine?
The full-scale Russian invasion, which started on February 24th, 2022 can best be described as an empire reset and a cultural genocide. Russia’s war of invasion is clearly aimed at eradicating the Ukrainian identity, culture, and language, and forcing the Russian language on the Ukrainian people, as well as a manipulated, chauvinistic, militaristic version of Russian culture, history, and worldview.
The repeated assertion that there is no Ukrainian culture of its own, that Ukraine does not deserve to be an independent state, and that Ukraine should be part of Russia has been one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s central motives for waging war against and occupying Ukraine. To annihilate everything Ukrainian is obviously one of the main objectives for the invasion.
As we know today, Ukrainian cultural heritage sites have been attacked through deliberate destruction, systematic looting, and theft. Ukraine’s societal memory, including seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites, is a daily target for Russian cruise robots and rockets. According to UNESCO, at least 238 cultural institutions had suffered deliberate destruction as of March 2023 and the Conflict Observatory reports (2023) potential damage to 1689 out of 28,624 cultural heritage sites in Ukraine as of July 31 (UNESCO, 1954).
History is repeating itself
It is however not the first time a Russian government aims to destroy Ukrainian culture. Ukrainian thinkers, writers, artists, and scholars have for the past three hundred years suffered first Tsarist and then Soviet efforts to deny, assimilate, and eliminate their culture, including banning the Ukrainian language itself. Nor is it the first-time cultural heritage has become targeted during war.
It is thus no coincidence that the many conquerors in human history who wanted to subjugate a defeated people often have started by burning the archives and libraries, simply because it is the most effective way to wipe out the common memory and the long continuity from the past that lives in the cultural heritage. Examples of such cultural genocides are many. Until now, the total destruction of the National Library in Sarajevo during the Serbian siege in 1992 has probably been the most well-known - and infamous - of our time.
The current situation for cultural heritage institutions
Apart from the apparent and deliberate destruction by Russian forces, loss or looting of collections, loss of technical equipment etc. many Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions have been continuously deteriorating in terms of personnel and technology.
In addition to the apparent and deliberate destruction by Russian forces, loss or looting of collections, and the loss of technical aids, etc. it is worth highlighting that even before the war, many Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions were grappling with challenges due to underfinancing. Many important cultural heritage institutions, including the Vernadsky National Library, are now in a state of slow decay, reflecting the compounded challenges arising from a poor starting point for digitization and the ongoing impact of the conflict on their resources.
In the words of the National Librarian, prof. Lyubov Dubrovina, “it has been impossible to buy new computers and raise salaries”, “it is almost impossible to find new employees due to the very low salary, which is impossible to live on” and “there is such an aging of the equipment and the people themselves. There are practically no young people”. Prof. Dubrovina has also described that many of her staff have fled the country or been drafted into the armed forces. Those who remain are on half salaries. There are only a few specialists left, and they are scattered on different tasks.
The situation for the Vernadsky National Library is certainly representative of the wider cultural heritage sector. Considering technology, our understanding is that there is a widespread, general, and urgent need even for the most basic computer equipment, including ordinary desktop computers, servers, scanners, software, and not least printers, which shows how paper-dependent the Ukrainian public administration still is.
Grassroots movements and government institutions
Grassroots movements have throughout history been powerful tools for bringing about social and political change and are often formed in response to a particular issue or problem that affects a specific community. For example, the Civil Rights Movement in the United States was formed to address the discrimination faced by African Americans.
Government institutions can be hampered by bureaucracy and often have to navigate complex regulations. This tends to make it difficult to take decisive action on important issues and in times of crisis they tend to have a slow response to challenges that need to be addressed urgently. In contrast grassroots movements are driven by passion and a commitment to a cause and are more nimble and can quickly mobilize to address specific issues, but may on the other hand lack the stability of a government authority.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, government decisions have been made at an unprecedented pace. In an interview (SVT Nyheter, 2022) conducted a month before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ann Linde, Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2019 to 2022, emphasized Sweden’s stringent rules against arms exports and its substantial support for Ukraine through aid aimed at reforms, which was considered a top priority: “We have very strong rules against arms exports, … … But we support Ukraine in many other ways, above all through a very high level of aid for reforms in Ukraine, which we believe is one of the most important.”
However, just days after the invasion, Sweden initiated direct arms exports to a country at war, marking the first such occurrence since the beginning of the Second World War (Svenska Freds, 2023). Initially, the decision to send even personal protective equipment was not apparent. Notably, for cultural heritage institutions, support initiatives have predominantly originated from individual or collective grassroots efforts.
What is SUCHO?
SUCHO is the abbreviation for Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online, an international volunteer initiative with over 1500 participants. This grassroots network has since February 2022, collaborated online to protect and secure Ukrainian cultural heritage through digital means. This was made possible by recruiting volunteers with a common knowledge base and with important support from employers, allowing them to volunteer on working hours. Financial and infrastructural support from major tech firms and other donors has also been instrumental. Open data in combination with free and open-source software is a given prerequisite for all SUCHO activities.
Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online, Phase 1 extended through the summer of 2022, resulting in the preservation of over 5400 sites and approximately 50 TB of data and was focused primarily on emergency web archiving during a period marked by concerns about the potential impact of the Russian aggressors taking control of major cities and manipulating the narrative on museum, library, and archives to reinterpret Ukraine’s cultural heritage as Russian.
However, the anticipated threat materialized differently, with power outages in Kyiv (where numerous servers are located) together with the immediate threat of direct shelling of cultural heritage institutions proving to be more pressing issues. The local history museum Kupyansk where two employees, including its director Iryna Osadcha was killed in a missile strike (CNN, 2023) The Kherson Regional Universal Scientific Library was totally destroyed in November 2023 are just two out of hundreds of examples of attacks on cultural heritage institutions.
In Phase 2, the goals are to curate, donate, and educate by coordinating aid shipments of tech hardware, showcasing Ukrainian culture online, and arranging training in digitization methods. More specifically, Phase 2 has consisted of the following activities: • • • •
What has SUCHO achieved so far?
The probably most apparent result of SUCHO’s activities up to this date has been the collection of the Ukrainian web, especially cultural heritage materials and official sites. Since the start of the Russian invasion, SUCHO has archived more than 5000 websites and more than 50 TB of data. These digital preservation actions have resulted in the creation of a number of safe havens outside Ukraine for collected digital born materials, but also in the continuous redistribution back to Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions of such materials.
SUCHO initially worked for the establishment of safe transport routes for donated equipment etc., primarily from Germany via Poland to Lviv and Kyiv in Ukraine. After severe initial logistical difficulties, the flow of donated equipment worked relatively quick and smoothly. But experience shows that the direct purchase of equipment within Ukraine is an even better option.
Another important activity of SUCHO’s has been the collection of financial funds and technical equipment in collaboration with e.g. Centrum Pomocy dla Kultury na Ukrainie (Polish Support Center for Culture in Ukraine) and German NFDI4Culture – Consortium for Research Data on Material and Immaterial Cultural Heritage. Mediation of larger donations of technical equipment from e.g. Amazon and from the Swedish Academy to Ukrainian cultural heritage institutions should also be mentioned.
Finally, the ongoing curation of collected digital materials through the SUCHO Gallery and SUCHO Meme Wall, as presented above, must be stressed.
What have we learned?
An overall experience from SUCHO’s activities up to today is that voluntary networks work faster and more smoothly than government authorities and formal organizations such as IFLA, ICA and UNESCO. The enthusiasm of volunteers and the ability to shortcut what would otherwise be political and bureaucratic obstacles and regulation is of great advantage. On the other hand, enthusiasm and solidarity alone are not always enough, especially not so in the longer run, and it takes continuous efforts to keep the interest and morale among volunteers up when the war seems to be a lasting condition. Continuity is difficult, and important, and it often takes considerable time to get the support in place.
Another important experience on the more material level is that contribution of equipment is often more efficient - and safer - than direct contribution of money. Technical equipment can also best be ordered and purchased locally in Ukraine, rather than imported, because in that way one supports the Ukrainian economy at the same time as one gets access to unique knowledge of the de facto needs. Local firms and consultants can also more easily supervise the installation of equipment and provide initial staff training etc.
To fund and purchase technical equipment in general is not always the biggest challenge, though, but rather finding the right technology for various very concrete and specific needs. This, obviously, must be done in close contact and cooperation with the management and staff of different cultural heritage institutions in Ukraine.
The clearest and most current area of use for such advanced digital equipment should then be mass digitization on the national level of cultural heritage collections and objects, because digitization is the prerequisite for the creation of future national digital repositories, and not the other way around. Neither would it be to the benefit of endangered collections to systematically remove them from their present locations. Such operations are usually very expensive and time consuming. Collections and cultural heritage objects are in most cases best and easiest protected by digitizing them on site.
Such digitization efforts should, in my opinion, be planned and coordinated primarily by the leading national institutions, such as the National Library and the National Archives, but in close collaboration primarily with research and scientific institutions who hold extensive collections. I would even recommend that digitization in general be prioritized before any large scale restoration of damaged or destroyed cultural heritage facilities.
But modern digital equipment is not enough for successful digitization operations. It also requires competence, which in turn is based on experience and training - another field where representatives of the national and international cultural heritage community should have all the conditions to contribute effectively. It should be as natural to invite and welcome Ukrainian colleagues to appropriate cultural heritage institutions as it already is for many nations to invite military personnel for training.
Last but not least, coordination is an extremely important keyword - and better coordination is typically needed on both the Ukrainian side and from different donors, international organizations etc. if the continued support from the outside world should have any real chance to make a difference for Ukraine and the cultural heritage community. The one hand needs to know in advance what the other hand is doing in the future efforts to strengthen the cultural heritage infrastructure of Ukraine in general.
What can we do together now and in the future?
In general, the continued support and strengthening of the cultural infrastructure of Ukraine with patience and perseverance, and the welcome of Ukraine to Europe, should be the overall priority for the future. Anti-tank weapons and shells are important to resist the aggressor, but so is also a living and independent Ukrainian cultural heritage.
In this effort it’s most important to ensure that the Russian abuses and violations against Ukrainian cultural heritage are documented, noticed, and condemned by the outside world. At the same time, we can contribute to a vibrant cultural exchange with Ukraine by spreading and stimulating Ukrainian literature, music, art and other culture in our own countries.
We should also continue to help our colleagues in Ukraine with financial means, with modern technical equipment, with training and with protection of endangered collections, e.g. by digitizing them on site, in the same time as we urge national government and authorities to also pay attention to the need for further cultural support to Ukraine.
And additionally, we must remind and urge Russia and the Russian representatives in our countries to follow the Hague Convention from 1954, which deals with the protection of cultural heritage in armed conflicts and makes it a war crime to damage cultural heritage. The introduction to this important document reads as follows: “…damage to the cultural property of a people, regardless of which country it belongs to, is tantamount to damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind, because every nation contributes to the culture of the world. […] the preservation of the cultural heritage is of great importance for the entire population of the earth and that it is important that this heritage becomes the subject of international protection”.
But especially, it’s extremely important to keep in close and open contact with those brave colleagues who fight every day to keep Ukrainian cultural heritage alive. Morale support is certainly as important as the transfer of funds or technology. We would encourage each and everyone to take every opportunity to contact, contribute, interact and cooperate with colleagues and institutions in Ukraine, because the realization that you are not alone, that you have friends who care about and are willing to support you, implies a very significant morale boost.
A final word
The tragic case of Ukraine should also contribute important lessons to us in other parts of Europe and the world as a whole. During the long period of relative stability and peace the protection of many of our important cultural heritage institutions and collections in the event of armed conflicts has generally been neglected, in favor of more current activities. Now it’s really about time to increase our preparedness, implement emergency planning at our institutions and upgrade our cultural heritage infrastructure to a more robust standard. The role of volunteers and that of grassroot movements should be a significant resource in this endeavor. The learning from Ukraine is that no one is invulnerable and that war even in the 21 century can take the form of a cultural genocide.
Some useful resources
SUCHO: https://sucho.org/
SUCHO Equipment Fund: https://opencollective.com/sucho/projects/equipment
Ukraine Library Relief Fund: https://ala.org/aboutala/ukraine-library-relief-fund
Library Association of Ukraine: https://ula.com.ua
Destroyed Cultural Heritage of Ukraine: https://culturecrimes.mkip.gov.ua
The Kyiv Independent: https://kyivindependent.com
Eyes on Russia: https://eyesonrussia.org
Liveuamap: https://liveuamap.com
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Author biography