As the news of the Ukrainian war reached the international community, cultural heritage organisations quickly pointed to the need of protecting and preserving the Ukrainian cultural heritage. Ukraine is home to a considerable number of remarkable cultural monuments that date back even 1,000 years ago and that are part of the UNESCO World Heritage List, like the 11th-century St Sophia Cathedral (Akinsha Konstantin 2022). Currently, in Ukraine, there are more than 140.000 objects of immovable heritage, 2530 museums and 12 million museum items.
Claire Harbage/NPR. Statues wrapped in protective materials stand in Lviv's old quarter in western Ukraine
One of the first international organisations that have immediately issued a statement regarding its preoccupation with the state-of-art of the Ukrainian cultural heritage and cultural heritage organisations is UNESCO. In its statement, UNESCO called for:
“...respect for international humanitarian law, notably the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its two (1954 and 1999) Protocols, to ensure the prevention of damage to cultural heritage in all its forms.”
(UNESCO statement, February 24, 2022)
Similarly, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) condemned the facts on the ground in Ukraine on the same day as UNESCO, while a few days later, on the 9th of March it issued a statement under the scope to recall the role of cultural heritage organisations in promoting peace. By emphasising the key conclusions of the 1st ICOM Assembly in Mexico in 1947, ICOM brought back its message conveyed more than seventy years ago but still relevant today:
“We believe that it is of the greatest importance for every nation that the knowledge of the cultures of the various countries forming part of one world should be made more widely known; 2. By these means there will be a broader ground of mutual understanding, for through exchange of cultural knowledge there is a common ground for peace;”
– 1st ICOM General Assembly, Mexico City, November 8, 1947 (ICOM 2022).
ICOM’s message for the role of culture and museums in buidling lasting peace
In the same direction, the Council of Europe has issued a new Recommendation (CM/Rec (2022)15) in which the role of cultural heritage to human societies as well as the importance of safeguarding it in times of conflict is being highlighted. More specifically, the Council of Europe urges governments to:
“assist Ukraine as necessary in dealing with the threats to its cultural heritage and its urgent preservation by using all possibilities offered by the Council of Europe’s conventions and legal and technical framework in the area of culture and cultural heritage, as well as in future action plans for Ukraine”
(Council of Europe, May 2022)
In the coming sections, there is a detailed presentation of initiatives undertaken by Ukrainian, European and International cultural heritage organisations in support of the Ukrainian cultural heritage sector, while a closer look will be given to academia-society cooperation in humanitarian crises and how open innovation can contribute to such challenging settings.