Global media has highlighted the harsh reality that everywhere that Russian forces have occupied Ukrainian territory, when they vacated these villages and cities they left behind evidence of torture chambers and mass graves. Nothing was done to hide the atrocities that they committed – they were intended to intimidate the Ukrainians who resisted their presence. The brutality committed in these places must result in war crime trials, and the names of the murderers are known in many cases.
What is less well-known is the cultural genocide that the Russians have also pursued since the beginning of their invasion in February 2022. Approximately 50 libraries and archives have been damaged or decimated and thousands were forcibly closed by the invaders. In addition, Russian soldiers have destroyed countless Ukrainian history books and literary works written by native writers, while hundreds of valuable textbooks were removed from school libraries. In many cases, irreplaceable volumes and manuscripts have been taken from museums and churches and subsequently burned.
The tragic character of this attack of cultural genocide was brought home to many Ukrainians when the body of Volodymyr Vakulenko was found in a mass grave in a liberated city in the Kharkiv region. He had been kidnapped in March and never seen again. Vakulenko was an author of children’s books; his popular “Daddy’s Book” described a hard-working elephant named Slavka who tended a garden full of crocuses and dahlias. The loss of lives and the destruction of creative works written by Ukrainians is terribly painful, but many citizens are working hard to protect their cultural heritage.
Andrey Kurkov, a Ukrainian author of numerous novels that have been translated into 37 languages, many scripts for TV documentaries, and children’s books, has observed that Ukraine was fortunate for its geology, but sadly not for its geography which is rich in minerals and huge expanses of fertile land. This reality has led to a history of neighboring empires – German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and others – who have claimed Ukrainian land, coal and oil.
But no empire in this region has wanted to steal one dimension of Ukraine’s wealth – its rich culture. Instead, they have worked hard to destroy it. The experience that Ukraine is going through right now has been underway for over 400 years. Repeated attempts have been made to get Ukrainians to forget their native language, their country’s history, and even to stop singing Ukrainian songs.
For more than 300 years, the Romanov dynasty made numerous efforts to destroy Ukraine’s distinct legacy. Here are just a few examples:
In 1720, Peter the Great in 1720 banned the publication of any book in the Ukrainian language.
In 1763, Catherine the Great demanded that Ukrainian not be used at the country’s oldest university, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
In 1804, teaching in Ukrainian schools was forbidden.
In 1884, Tsar Alexander III banned any theatre performances in Ukrainian.
In 1888, he made it illegal to give a Ukrainian name to a child at baptism.
When Ukraine was a part of the Russian Empire for 300 years, Romanov tsars signed more than forty decrees restricting or prohibiting the use of the Ukrainian language in the region that is now Ukraine.
After the revolution of 1917, Ukraine experienced a short period of independence, but when it became one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union, the process of Russification was revived once again. Under President Putin, the policies of the Romanov tsars are now being resurrected and put into force in the occupied territories of Ukraine, and Ukrainian books are being removed from libraries and schools. In Russia, where camps have been built to house Ukrainians forcibly removed from their homes, these displaced people are being forcibly taught Russian traditions and customs in an effort to turn them into ”Russian people.”
In addition to sending weapons and humanitarian aid, Kurkov says there is another important way to help Ukraine – find and read non-fiction books about the history of Ukraine because its history and culture are little known in Europe and North America. Most of us may have been in a class in which the history of the Soviet Union was discussed, but little was taught about the other fourteen republics (Ukraine and the Central Asian states, for example) that made up the USSR. My recommendation would be Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (revised edition: New York: Basic Books, 2021). Kurkov also recommended that we search for books by Ukrainian writers – this will help generate cultural dialogue, which is needed between democratic nations.