Ukraine’s war against cultural erasure
Damage to the interior of the regional administration building of Kharkiv. (Photo: Ed Ram via The Guardian)
The sprawling architecture of the Kharkiv State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater was once a sight to behold. Posters of upcoming performances adorned the exterior walls and rose arrangements decorated the plaza’s fountains. Inside, event goers would be ushered from a cathedral of art-filled walls into halls that could seat nearly 2,000 people.
But severe Russian shelling has since brought the building to rubble, killing 10 people in the process. The theater is not the only cultural landmark destroyed.
The Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab coordinates the mapping of the mounting destruction of Ukraine’s cultural landscape. The international team of archaeologists, historians, and technicians also registers and protects landmarks at risk.
So far, the lab has detected damage to 191 landmarks and venues. Cultural centers such as the Mariupol Museum and the Makarivska Public Library in Kyiv that contain unique art and literature were destroyed. Historic buildings and monuments dedicating Ukraine’s fight against Nazism in World War II, including the Drobitsky Yar Holocaust Memorial, were also damaged. Included in the count are 58 places of worship, 111 memorials, nine public monuments, and an archaeological site.
Violence directed at monuments and buildings may seem incomparable to the growing toll of injury and death inflicted on Ukrainians—according to Ukraine President Zelensky, the conflict in Donbas may reach a level of 50 to 100 Ukrainians lost per day—but culture and heritage plays a crucial role in a nation’s identity.
“In addition to a purely conventional military attack, Russia knows it to be more strategic to target Ukrainian culture with the primary aim of it being destroyed,” said Yuri Shevchuk, a lexicographer and lecturer of Ukrainian language at Columbia University. “They know that even if Ukraine wins, but Ukrainian culture loses and Ukrainian language disappears, there will be no Ukraine.”
It is against international law to intentionally target cultural heritage and property in war, according to the 1954 Hague Convention. Since Russia and Ukraine are among the 133 signatories, the damage to Ukraine’s cultural institutions is a potential war crime.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov responded that Moscow was aware of its obligations under the treaty and remains committed to them.
In a letter to Lavrov, UNESCO Chief Audrey Azoulay notes that coordinates for the heritage sites have been attached with some properties distinctively marked with the United Nations’ “Blue Shield” emblem.
None of the seven World Heritage sites in Ukraine—including St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Lviv’s entire historic city district, and the Struve Geodetic Archave—have been damaged so far.
“Culture is as powerful a weapon as a 155-millimeter Howitzer or a cruise missile,” Shevchuk said. “The difference is that culture has much longer-lasting consequences, and it is projected much farther.
It's not just Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has cloaked his expansionism in the guise of national cohesion. The war is not just for territory or to subdue resistance, but to subsume Ukraine culturally and linguistically into Russia–denying its existence as a sovereign nation with unique societies, traditions, and artistic forms that have grown since Ukraine’s independence in 1991.
His propaganda has since then been well-received by many Latin American, African countries, and Asian neighbors, the global turmoil feeding into their own internal conflicts and predisposition against the United States and the West.
The Chinese government has waged a campaign to stamp out Uyghur cultural and national identity for the sake of territorial hegemony. Alongside the mass detention in re-education camps to instill national dogma, Beijing has criminalized Uyghur culture. Those writing about their traditions, values, and communities are charged with advocating ethnic hatred or separatism.
China also encroaches on democracy by replacing the Cantonese language with Mandarin via mandated school instruction in Hong Kong. Moreover, Beijing is tightening its grip on the territory’s arts institutions, publishers, and universities, with paintings and sculptures removed from public view. Pro-democracy activism against the national security law and press freedom continues to wither.
In Myanmar, a decade of artistic and cultural flowering after the end of the military junta has given way to the repression of writers, scholars, and artists. Many have fled, lest they face imprisonment or state-sanctioned torture and killings.
Delayed return for Marawi evacuees
In the Philippines, president-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said during a campaign stop in Bukidnon last March that there was “no need” to focus on the rehabilitation of areas ravaged by the Marawi siege which began five years ago, because President Rodrigo Duterte is already “finishing it.”
But it would take several more years before thousands of displaced families could get government compensation and be able to rebuild destroyed areas. According to Lominog Lao, director for the Lanao area of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF), ~40% of the land claims made by families that fled ground zero are under dispute.
For many, the long wait to return home could take at least three more years at the earliest to 10 years or even longer.
