{"id":52226,"date":"2016-04-13T17:26:06","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T17:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uacrisis.org\/?p=42125"},"modified":"2016-04-15T18:02:24","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T15:02:24","slug":"42125-provesti-dekomunizatsiyu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/42125-provesti-dekomunizatsiyu","title":{"rendered":"Decommunization is about removing ideological \u2018layers of old paint\u2019 and creating environment that allows drawing own conclusions \u2013 activists"},"content":{"rendered":"

WATCH IN ENGLISH<\/a><\/p>\n

Law on decommunisation is often misinterpreted, thus it raises many questions at the stage of its implementation. Yet this change shall come through all the regions of Ukraine, starting from inside of museums and form of presenting historic information should change. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Kyiv, April 13, 2016.<\/strong><\/em> \u201cConducting decommunization today [\u2026] means removing all the ideological \u2018layers of old paint\u2019, clearing absolutely every word, every message, creating environment that allows every visitor to draw his or her own conclusions,\u201d said Lesya Gasydzhak, editor of the web-portal \u201cMuzeinyi Prostir\u201d, head of the Information and Analysis Department of NGO \u201cUkrainian Centre for Museums Development\u201d at a press briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. Only then we will have real civil society and democracy, she emphasized. According to Gasydzhak, people, not only museum workers, cannot read and analyze, so they wrongly interpret the law on decommunization. The law reads that the prohibition does not apply to the cases of using symbols of communist totalitarian regime in museum exhibits, said Gasydzhak. \u201cThere are emotions, reflexes regarding the necessity to change everything during decommunization and that presumably there are museums where red stars on Soviet tanks and garrison caps were covered with paint. What is it for? Will they stick tridents instead of stars?\u201d asks Gasydzhak. \u201cIsn\u2019t it the same recall of the Soviet Union, only even worse than the one we condemn\u201d. According to her, we must understand museums in Soviet times were ideological mouthpieces and it was their main task.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuseum as an institution must be a flagship in a certain way,\u201d said Leonid Marushchak, Arts department curator at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. Following organization of a cultural artistic residence in Vinnytsia, it became evident that museums in Ukraine remain conservative like they were in Soviet times, said Marushchak, sharing his impressions. \u201cThere is a number of treasures that not many people saw, but the most important and problematic for me as a person from Vinnytsia is the fact that there are no contemporary things,\u201d explained Marushchak. Within the framework of \u201cDE\u201d culture workshops in Sloviansk, Severodonetsk and Mariupol, the curator of UCMC Arts department saw a number of examples of local museums still \u2018breathing\u2019 the Soviet past. A museum in Sloviansk for him was the most striking. \u201cThe most interesting exhibits date back to 1917, there are several stuffed wolves, bores and foxes, and then there is immediately 1917. Everything that was before is a mystery,\u201d recollects Marushchak. \u201cWe were overwhelmed that there was not a single mention that there was huge amount of foreign investments in Sloviansk in early XIX \u2013 late XX century\u201d.<\/p>\n

There is a problem of Soviet influence not only in the Eastern Ukraine but also in Central and Western Ukraine. It still takes \u2018lion\u2019s share\u2019 of exhibits in museums, there are displays dedicated to \u201cpeople who in reality were punitive explorers,\u201d said Vasyl Rozhko, chief of Museums and Cultural Property Directorate at the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine.\u00a0 According to him, our present-day museum system is a remnant of the Soviet system. \u201cThere is a certain blend, when there is no party, and no vertical structure, and the regions are not subordinate to Kyiv, [\u2026] but we are stuck somewhere, when there is no more \u201cold\u201d and yet nothing \u201cnew\u201d,\u201d believes Rozhko. \u00a0At the same time, is not enough to say that for past 70 years of the Soviet power 70 percent of exhibitions in many museums were made of Soviet things. The problem is much deeper, as there were no inventories, there is no list of the museums, there are no communications, systematic vision and mechanism of future work of the museums,\u201d said the official. He believes that all museums must become independent. \u201cWe must condemn crimes, form public attitude towards crimes […] and, correspondingly, we would have to assess whether we honour murders of people during Soviet times, but not presence of Soviet artifacts on display,\u201d said Rozhko. The problem is that the Soviet ideology was forced upon people for many decades, and it \u2018sprang\u2019 in people\u2019s minds. \u201cWe can\u2019t simply condemn, we must deeply reconsider,\u201d emphasized the ministry representative.<\/p>\n

Oksana Barshynova, art critic, head of the Department of Art of the XX \u2013 beginning XXI centuries at the National Museum of Art of Ukraine, said that there is a human resources problem and the problem of incorporation of modern art as an instrument of change in museology.\u00a0 In terms of decommunization, such towns as, say, Vinnytsia and Severodonetsk are similar, despite opposite circumstances. \u201cPeople in Vinnytsia are convinced that decommunization has taken place there, they are absolutely calm. When you come to a museum, you see that some pieces of information materials were torn up by the roots and new materials were put in, those materials which are contemporary. Nevertheless, in general it looks barbarous,\u201d said Barshynova. On the opposite, people in Severodonetsk do not suspect that decommunization is necessary at all, said the art critic. Considering the lack of human resources, it is necessary to introduce change from several directions, said the head of the museum department. First of all, the change must be made from the inside of the museum, which means critical thinking of museum workers themselves must be developed. Secondly, it is necessary to cooperate with the surrounding environment, in particular with artists who can be a voice of the society,\u201d said Barshynova.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are so much afraid of repetition of the 1937, that they are getting ahead of themselves to do what does not need to be done,\u201d said Anastasiya Gaidukevych, Head of the Museum Affairs Department at Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. She said museum workers are afraid and do not know what to do when 90 percent of their museum fund relates to the Soviet times. The keynote of the law is that museums must stop performing propaganda function they were performing before, emphasized Gaidukevych. She believes presentation of information in museums must be changed. For instance, there is often biased coverage of history, for instance, events of 1917 \u2013 1921 only in the Bolshevik interpretation, or simply torn out fragments of Ukrainian history, such as relating to the Holodomor, said the museum worker. It must be reconsidered not from the forced standpoint that it must be done in this or that way, the audience must receive full scope of viewpoints and positions relating to some events. Only then will people be able to think and form their own attitude, said Gaidukevych.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WATCH IN ENGLISH Law on decommunisation is often misinterpreted, thus it raises many questions at the stage of its implementation. Yet this change shall come through all the regions of Ukraine, starting from inside of museums and form of presenting historic information should change. \u00a0 Kyiv, April 13, 2016. \u201cConducting decommunization today [\u2026] means removing […] More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":52227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":[],"categories":[705],"tags":[],"section":[648],"form":[31956],"yoast_head":"\nDecommunization is about removing ideological \u2018layers of old paint\u2019 and creating environment that allows drawing own conclusions \u2013 activists | UACRISIS.ORG<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=w2QSfYCQHYc WATCH IN ENGLISH Law on decommunisation is often misinterpreted, thus it raises many questions at the stage of | Uacrisis.org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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