Cultural destruction

Many of Ukraine’s museums and churches have been emptied of their treasures, small statues of mythic and historic figures have been bundled up and taken away from city squares, and large statues have been wrapped to protect from shrapnel and bullet wounds. The fate of monuments, museums and churches — which cannot be wrapped in foam and plastic or spirited away — is to be determined by the course of the offensive unleashed by Russia three weeks ago.

The UN’s cultural  organisation, UNESCO, has warned that major historical and cultural sites in Ukraine are in danger. “City centres are seriously damaged, some of which have sites and monuments that date back to the 11th century,” UNESCO World Heritage Director Lazare Eloundou told Euronews.

“Today, museums are damaged, some with collections inside. There are also cultural venues that are damaged. It is a whole cultural life that risks disappearing,” he stated.

UNESCO lists seven Ukrainian properties as World Heritage Sites, including Kyiv’s 11th century golden-domed Saint-Sophia Cathedral and attached monastic buildings and church, which are under immediate threat of destruction and damage from the Russian army’s drive to capture the capital city and its rich heritage.

Kyiv’s Museum of Natural History displays some of the earliest examples of human habitation: huts made of mammoth bones which date back 15,000 years to the Old Stone Age.  Among the artifacts at Museum of Historical Treasures is the Scythian breastplate made in the 4th century BC of 24 carat gold and decorated with delicately modelled scenes of daily life.  The 12th century Church of Saint Cyril, decorated with medieval and 19th century frescoes just missed damage when Bobn Yar, a mass grave holding Nazi victims, was bombed. The National Museum contains priceless icons and paintings of the medieval and baroque periods and portraits of historical figures.

The western city of Lviv, 80 kilometres from the Polish border, has, so far, been spared massive Russian bombardment because its highways and rail line speed thousands of Ukrainians who arrive daily on their way to exile in Poland and elsewhere in Europe. Some 200,000 displaced persons have found shelter in Lviv in the hope of staying on in Ukraine.  Unfortunately, its citizens fear the worst as Lviv is the heart of Ukrainian nationalism, the movement which won separation from Russia.

A city of 700,000, Lviv is, also unfortunately, the cultural capital of Ukraine. Established in the 13th century, Lviv was the seat of a Polish kingdom and was embellished with magnificent churches and mansions. The centre of the old city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, survived nearly unscathed from German and Soviet occupations during World War II.

The city hosts many institutions of higher learning and culture, a philharmonic orchestra, opera and ballet companies, and art galleries. The National Art Museum is the largest in the country. The university, founded in 1608 by Catholic Jesuit priests, is one of the most venerable in Central Europe. The Lviv literature festival draws writers from the world over.

The other five UNESCO sites are the 5th century BC remains of a Greek city on the northern shores of the Black Sea, the 19th century palace of Ukrainian Orthodox prelates at the town of Chernivtsi, the Struve Geodetic Arc built as part of a 19th century survey of 10 countries, 16 wooden churches constructed between the 16-19th centuries by Orthodox and Catholic communities, and the primeval and ancient beech forests of the Carpathian Mountains. Another 17 sites await UNESCO designation.

Cairo has expressed concern over the threat to hundreds of Egyptian antiquities in the Odessa archaeological museum and called for their repatriation.

UNESCO experts are helping Ukraine in the struggle to preserve its heritage and identify damage and destruction inflicted on churches, theatres, and museums across the country. Harming such sites, other “civilian objects” and civilians are war crimes.  

The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property during armed conflict prohibits targeting of cultural heritage but is widely ignored by national armies and air forces and non-state militias. Destruction often takes place during bombing and shelling of cities and towns, relegating built heritage to classification, along with civilian casualties, as collateral damage.

Ignorance and carelessness also inflict severe damage to heritage. Although the Bush administration was warned by US archaeologists well ahead of the risks of the 2003 war to Iraq’s ancient and Islamic heritage, their appeals were ignored. US tank crews stationed outside the Iraq Museum in Baghdad after the fall of the city in April 2003 did nothing to prevent or halt looting of its treasures and US forces stationed at the site of ancient Babylon caused widespread damage and pollution to the ruins.    

Historic buildings can be deliberately attacked. Following the Turkish invasion and occupation of north Cyprus in 1974, ancient, medieval and modern churches were stripped of wall paintings, mosaics, and icons and municipal museums libraries and archaeological site store houses were pillaged.   

During the Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian wars that fractured Yugoslavia in the 1990s Croats blew up the 16th century Ottoman bridge at Mostar and Serb artillery fire damaged Sarajevo’s magnificiant 19th century Austro-Hungarian city hall modelled on Mamluke period buildings in Cairo. Both have been lovingly restored. I visited them in 2014.

In 2001, the Taliban blew up the 6th century statues of Buddha carved into a mountainside in Bamiyan province in Afghanistan and in 2015 Daesh destroyed two 2,000-year-old Roman temples in Palmyra in the Syrian desert, and the sites of the ancient cities of Nimrod and Hatra in Iraq. The objective of the Taliban and Daesh was to erase the rich histories of these countries.

Well aware of this risk, Ukrainian museum staff seem to be following the example of other antiquities departments by moving portable artifacts to bunkers and safe places. Cyprus shipped its valuable collection of ancient gold jewellery to Athens before the 1974 Turkish invasion but was unable to transport icons and other church property to safety. Ahead of the 1991 US-led war, Iraq stored its collection of Mesopotamian gold jewellery in the vaults of the central bank and moved iconic artifacts to bunkers. The hidden treasures were restored to the museum after the 2003 US occupation. Since the eruption of civil conflict in Syria in 2011-12, moveable items in most of its museums have stored in secret locations to prevent pillage. The national museum in Damascus is closed, depriving Syrians of the right to learn about their history and culture.