The War Museum on the Frontline
In the course of the Russian invasion, the Kyiv War Museum continues its activities as a key actor in the construction of Ukrainian identity. Confronted with the warlike events themselves in the immediate vicinity of the capital, the museum resorts to drastic historical comparisons in order to categorize the violent experiences of the present. Elżbieta Olzacka's contribution is about working out the constructions of history found in the museum, not critically questioning them.
When, in early February 2022, stood on the brink of war with , the Kyiv Motherland Statue was illuminated in the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Located in the museum complex of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War monument became one of the symbols of national unity and the readiness of Ukrainians to defend against enemy attacks. A few weeks later, when Russian tanks tried to break into , the War Museum became not only a symbol but also an important center of Ukrainian resistance, mobilizing Ukrainians and the international community to fight.
Ukraine
ukr. Ukrajina, deu. Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in eastern Europe inhabited by about 42 million people. Kiev is the capital and also the greatest city of Ukraine. The country has been independent since 1991. The Dnieper River is the longest river in Ukraine.
Russia
deu. Russland, rus. Rossija, rus. Россия
The Russian Federation is the largest territorial state in the world and is inhabited by about 145 million people. The capital and largest city is Moscow, with about 11.5 million inhabitants, followed by St. Petersburg with more than 5.3 million inhabitants. The majority of the population lives in the European part of Russia, which is much more densely populated than the Asian part.
Since 1992, the Russian Federation has been the successor state to the Russian Soviet Republic (Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, RSFSR), by far the largest constituent state of the former Soviet Union. It is also the legal successor of the Soviet Union in the sense of international law.
Kiïv
deu. Kiew, ukr. Kyjiw, eng. Kiev, eng. Kyiv, pol. Kijów, ukr. KiÌv, ukr. Kyïv
Kiev is located on the Dnieper River and has been the capital of Ukraine since 1991. According to the oldest Russian chronicle, the Nestor Chronicle, Kiev was first mentioned in 862. It was the main settlement of Kievan Rus' until 1362, when it fell to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, becoming part of the Polish-Lithuanian noble republic in 1569. In 1667, after the uprising under Cossack leader Bogdan Chmel'nyc'kyj and the ensuing Polish-Russian War, Kiev became part of Russia. In 1917 Kiev became the capital of the Ukrainian People's Republic, in 1918 of the Ukrainian National Republic, and in 1934 of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Kiev was also called the "Mother of all Russian Cities", "Jerusalem of the East", "Capital of the Golden Domes" and "Heart of Ukraine".
Kiev is heavily contested in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Due to the war in Ukraine, it is possible that this information is no longer up to date.
The Kyiv War Museum is a special place for Ukrainians. The museum and the surrounding memorial complex were opened on 9 May 1981 as a space to celebrate the Soviet Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. This place’s monumental architecture and pathos were to celebrate the strength, courage and sacrifice of those who gave their health and lives for this victory. The museum building is located in a vast, ten-hectare “memorial complex,” directly below the 62-meter-tall statue of Motherland. The sculpture, facing Moscow, stands triumphantly, holding a raised shield and sword. The museum is accessed by an alley lined with military equipment and a gallery of bronze bas-reliefs depicting the bravery of soldiers and the dedication of the so-called “home front.” In front of the museum entrance is a square that can accommodate about 30,000 people, with massive sculptural compositions depicting the crossing of the Dnieper River and a colossal bowl with the “eternal fire” on the hill overlooking the square.
After Ukraine gained independence in 1991, such saturation with socialist-realist architecture and communist symbols was not conducive to breaking with the Soviet ways of remembering and presenting war heritage. In 1996, the museum gained national status, becoming increasingly involved in creating a Ukrainian-centric interpretation of the Second World War and commemorating all participants in the Ukrainian struggle for independence, including the anti-Soviet insurgent army. However, until 2015, both the museum’s name and the main exhibition’s assumptions remained unchanged. It was only the “de-communization laws” prohibiting the promotion of communist symbolism and, at the same time, introducing new, European models of commemorating the Second World War that forced profound changes in the museum’s narrative and aesthetics.
„Ukrainian East“
At the same time, after 2014, the museum is not only a place to discuss the disputed history of the Ukrainian fight for independence in the 20th century but also a place to commemorate the most recent Ukrainian heroes. In wartime conditions, the War Museum, one of the most frequently visited Ukrainian museums, has become a vital instrument for giving information about the ongoing warfare in the country’s east and mobilizing for further support for the war effort.
The start of the project “Ukrainian East” was the exhibition of war trophies organized in July 2014 in front of the entrance to the museum building. Heavy military equipment, including the T-67BV tank and the Grad BM-21 launcher, aimed to illustrate the scale of war operations and present evidence of the participation of the Russian Federation in the military operations in the country’s east. War trophies also testified to the readiness and ability of the Ukrainian army to effectively defend its state. The exhibition attracted huge interest, and Museum employees began collecting objects, documents, and oral histories related to the ongoing war. Since 2015, the exhibition “Ukrainian East” has gradually taken up more and more space on the ground floor of the Museum building. From the very beginning, it was an exhibition dedicated to Russian aggression and Russian-Ukrainian war, and the curators of this project took very seriously the task of making both Ukrainians and foreign visitors aware of who and what Ukraine is fighting for. In addition, the museum staff organized temporary thematic exhibitions devoted to, among others, childhood in the war, prisoners of war, and military chaplains. Since 2015, the War Museum has also regularly hosted meetings with warfare participants, documentary film screenings, promotions of books related to the ongoing conflict, lectures by historians and journalists, and occasional meetings for families who lost loved ones in the war. Thanks to this, the “Ukrainian East” exhibition has become a “space of memory and emotions,” a place of meetings and memories of those who gave their lives defending Ukrainian sovereignty.
Exhibition of Russian war trophies. According to the description, these items are material evidence of crimes committed by pro-Russian militant groups supported by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the territory of Ukraine.
Museum front
When Russian rockets fell on Ukrainian cities on the morning of February 24, 2022, the Museum team joined the fight without hesitation. During the clashes to keep the capital in February and March, some museum employees joined the ranks of the Armed Forces or territorial defense units. Others weaved camouflage nets, organized collections of medicines and equipment, and prepared meals and drinks for the combatants. The museum also lent its exhibits, anti-tank hedgehogs from 1941, which, after 81 years, once again fulfilled their task on the streets of Kyiv.
At the same time, museum work did not stop for a moment. As the current director of the museum, Yuriy Savchuk, put it at the beginning of 2015, Ukraine needs a strong “museum front” where it fights to preserve its cultural heritage in the challenging conditions of the conflict with Russia and to strengthen the sense of national belonging among the inhabitants of Ukraine. In addition, in the new wartime conditions, the most important mission of the Museum has become collecting, storing and presenting to the public the history and artefacts of the brutal Russian aggression.
That is why, on March 8, during the military operations on the streets of Kyiv, museum workers set out on an expedition to document the events. Despite the immediate threat, they captured the city’s inhabitants preparing for defense and the extent of rocket attacks’ damage. Collecting new exhibits has also begun. In early April 2022, when Russian troops left the vicinity of Kyiv, Museum employees began field trips to ruined towns and villages, including , , , and . “Accompanied by the military and with unprecedented security measures, the Museum team led by director Yuriy Savchuk was one of the first to set foot on the razed land of once thriving villages” reads an emotional post on the Museum’s website. In addition to objects and photographs, the stories of witnesses and participants of the events began to be collected. “The Russian war against Ukraine is first and foremost a story of human destinies. It is the task of museologists to document them so that future generations will have real first-hand information,” we can read on the Museum’s website.
Ìrpinʹ
ukr. Ірпінь, rus. Ирпень, rus. Irpenʹ
Irpin (population 2021: 65,167) is located on the same-named river in the Ukrainian oblast of Kyiv, in the Buča district. The town, which was only established at the beginning of the 20th century, was granted city rights in 1956. Before the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022, Irpin was considered an emerging suburb of Kiìv. In February-March 2022, Irpin and the neighboring towns of Hostomelʹ and Buča were affected by fierce fighting and Russian massacres of the civilian population, with over 400 people killed.
Buča
rus. Buča, rus. Буча, ukr. Буча
The city of Buča (population 2021: 37,321) is located in the Ukrainian oblast of Kyiv, on the Buča and Rokač rivers. Today's town originated as a railroad settlement, which developed into a spa town towards the end of the 19th century. Buča established itself as a popular suburb of Kiìv even before it was granted city rights in 2007.
In the initial phase of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine in February-March 2022, Buča and the neighboring towns of Irpin and Hostomel were affected by fierce fighting and Russian massacres of the civilian population with over 400 people killed.
Gostomelʹ
ukr. Hostomel, rus. Гостомель, rus. Gostomelʹ, ukr. Гостомель, rus. Gostomel
The urban settlement of Hostomel (population 2021: 18,466) is located in the Ukrainian oblast of Kyiv, in the Buča district. Hostomelʹ held city rights from 1619 to 1938. Before the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022, the town was considered an emerging suburb of Kyiv. In February-March 2022, Hostomel and the neighboring towns of Irpin and Buča were affected by fierce fighting and Russian massacres of the civilian population, with over 400 people killed.
Borodânka
pol. Borodzianka, ukr. Бородянка, rus. Borodânka, rus. Бородянка
Borodyanka (population 2021: 12,832) is located in the Ukrainian oblast of Kyiv. The settlement, which has been known since the 11th century, was only granted the status of an urban-type settlement in 1954. The multi-storey buildings in the village were largely destroyed in night-time bombardments in 2022 during the early phase of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Experience the war for yourself
The collected photographs, artifacts, and stories made it possible to create a unique on-site exhibition, Ukraine–Crucifixion, in an extremely short time. It aimed to present both the ongoing history of the war and the material evidence of Russian crimes.
Among the exhibits are weapons, equipment, and personal items of Russian soldiers killed on the front line. These include, for example, cluster bombs used by the Russians to destroy settlements and inflict heavy casualties on civilians, passports showing how young some of them were, and the diary of a Russian officer who calls interrogated Ukrainians “Nazis.” The artistic installations of over a hundred pairs of shoes of killed Russian soldiers arranged inside a red star or soldiers’ helmets set in the shape of the letter “Z” are very impressive.
Other objects show the scale of war damage affecting not only residential buildings, schools, hospitals, and railway stations but also Ukraine’s cultural and religious heritage—the charred dome of an Orthodox church or an icon pierced by shrapnel. The gate of the church, ripped out by the explosion, leads to a room with artwork inspired by the conflict. Artists associated with the museum, using objects brought from the zone occupied by the Russians in February and March 2022, expressed such complex topics as the lost childhood of a million young Ukrainians, symbolized by a grenade hidden under a toy in a sandbox, or a destroyed World War II monument showing a powerful parallel between these two conflicts.
The carefully curated exhibition made the visitors feel as if they had seen the war with their own eyes. As Yuriy Savchuk put it during the exhibition’s opening, its creators wanted everyone to realize what was happening and what horror the civilian population of Ukraine was experiencing. This effect was best achieved by the detailed reconstruction of a makeshift shelter from the town of Hostomel near Kyiv, which the Russians took over in the first days of the war. Over 100 people, including children and a baby, hid in the original shelter for 37 days. Two people died in such unsanitary conditions.
Three rooms are filled with things from the shelter – mattresses, blankets, jars with food, and dishes. The rooms are damp and cold, but the most striking thing is the smell of musty blankets and onions, giving the impression that the people hiding have just left. Museum employees know that such a realistic composition can be shocking to visitors, including those who have experienced similar experiences. However, when a devastating war is going on, such radical solutions seem justified, and museum professionals must show the uncensored consequences of war, which are real for millions of people.
The exhibition was available onsite for visitors from 8 May 2022. On that day, the War Museum resumed its ‘normal’ functioning. However, new information appeared on the website: ‘in case of an air siren, the entrance of new visitors to the exposition will be stopped’, and ‘visitors to the Memorial can go to the shelter with seats and water available’. In fact, the first day of the exhibition was interrupted by seven air sirens.
During wartime, the exhibition is visited mainly by Kyivans, domestic and foreign journalists, and foreign delegations. It was visited by many diplomats and politicians staying in Kyiv, including former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Look and act
To reach a wider audience, the Museum, thanks to cooperation with foreign partners, organizes exhibition projects in other countries, including Poland, France, Germany, South Korea, and Turkey, and also develops an impressive online activity. These initiatives aim to inform the international community about the ongoing war in Ukraine, the situation of civilians in bombed cities, and Russian war crimes. In addition, new museum projects have a clear mobilizing dimension, calling for decisive and determined action and support for Ukraine.
For example, on the museum’s website (also its English-language version), the project “Chronicles of War” was active during the first two hundred days of the war, through which the following days were counted down. Every day there was information about the situation at the front, the destruction and international support, and the losses of the Russian troops.
Another initiative is the “Look! Mariupol” project, which was presented as a stationary photo exhibition in many European and non-European cities and as an “online exhibition” through the museum’s website. The exhibition consists of 42 photos taken by local journalist Vyacheslav Tverdohlib, who documented the lives of the city’s inhabitants during the dramatic weeks when Mariupol was besieged and shelled by Russian forces. After 23 days of hiding in the basement, the journalist managed to leave the city and, despite the risk, took the photographic and film material himself.
The photos from Mariupol illustrate the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in a city without a permanent supply of water, electricity, and heat. Considering the scale of the damage—it is estimated that up to 80 percent of the buildings in the city were affected—the comparisons to Warsaw in 1944 and Aleppo in 2016 made in the description seem justified. Last but not least, the exhibition includes a request for recognition of Russia’s actions as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation and humanitarian aid for the imprisoned city from the Mariupol City Council.
The photos from Mariupol illustrate the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in a city without a permanent supply of water, electricity, and heat. Considering the scale of the damage—it is estimated that up to 80 percent of the buildings in the city were affected—the comparisons to Warsaw in 1944 and Aleppo in 2016 made in the description seem justified. Last but not least, the exhibition includes a request for recognition of Russia’s actions as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian nation and humanitarian aid for the imprisoned city from the Mariupol City Council.
Never again?
Following the new European model of commemorating World War II, introduced in Ukraine in 2015, the red poppy is accompanied by the slogan “Never again” (Nikoly znovu). The phrase, initially associated with commemorating Holocaust victims, eventually became a general call for preventing mass atrocities through moral education and critical reflection on evil.
However, in today’s Ukraine, it is hard to follow this model indiscriminately. Since 2014, the war in Ukraine has been a fact, costing people’s lives and constituting a traumatic interruption in the life of the entire Ukrainian society. Especially after February 2022, the Russian invasion has made the horrors of war and genocide a reality for millions of Ukrainians, not history from which lessons can be safely learned. In order to mourn their victims in peace, Ukrainians must first defeat the enemy, liberate the occupied territories, and ensure their country’s complete integrity and security.
In wartime, “Never Again” took on a new, mobilizing character, becoming a call to judge Russian war crimes and punish the criminals. The memory of the war and the Holocaust has also become ammunition, which the employees of the War Museum willingly use. In the online project “Parallels”, they juxtaposed photos from the museum’s collection, one from World War II and the other from the ongoing war.
The terrifying “mimicry of war” and the “terrible déjà vu” are manifested, among other things, in the compilation entitled “Crimes,” which contains two photos of abandoned, dirty children's shoes. The caption under one photo reads, “Personal belongings of Jews murdered by the Nazis in Babyn Yar, Kyiv, 1941,” and under the other, “Shoe of a one-year-old girl killed by the Russian missle attack, Malyn, Zhytomyr Oblast, 2022.” Similarly, in the set entitled “Victims,” we see two photographs of bodies abandoned on the side of the road with meaningful captions: “In the streets of Nazi-occupied Kyiv, 1941” and “In the streets of Bucha, 2022.”
The project, available in two language versions, Ukrainian and English, is intended to mobilize Ukrainians and international public opinion to act and stop the “unimaginable evil,” which once again incarnated in the form of Putin’s Russia. Referring to the Holocaust helps to draw a clear line between good and evil, invaders and their innocent victims. Also, it appeals to the conscience of each of us, calling for action to speed up the punishment of criminals and the restoration of justice.
Towards new meanings
Finally, it should be noted that in the conditions of the ongoing war, the main task of the War Museum is not a critical historical debate but the creation of an integrating narrative. In this new narrative, history is to become the source not of disputes and fights but of common myths, symbols, and heroes. Through reconstruction of exhibitions presenting World War II history, museum employees are trying to create a “common frame” of the fight for Ukrainian independence. This frame aims to unite the fight of the Red Army soldiers against fascism with the fight of the anti-communist nationalist Insurgent Army by stressing not the differences but values shared by all heroes – courage, honor, and love and devotion for their homeland.
In addition, the heroization of the national struggle for independence, combining several generations of heroes fighting in various, often opposing formations, is supposed to strengthen the “national consent” needed in a foreign invasion.
A meaningful example of the reorganization of meanings and symbols related to the old communist world is the Statue of the Motherland, which is becoming more and more incorporated into the Ukrainian symbolic space. Since Ukraine became independent, the monument has been a source of great controversy. Over the years, the “Ukrainization” of the statute has been taken in many ways. For example, a wreath of flowers was placed on its head, referring to Ukrainian traditions, and it was lit up with the colors of the national flag.
However, it was not until February 2022, when Russian troops began to break into the Ukrainian capital, that the Motherland Statue became a real symbol of resistance against Russian aggression. The monument became the subject of patriotic posters, graphics, and memes, encouraging armed resistance to the invader. Geographically, the sculpture faces Moscow, but the intentions of this position are now entirely different than in Soviet times. Today, the sword and shield held by the statue are a weapon against Russia, which is trying to rebuild the Soviet empire.
