Killed by Russia: a project to commemorate deceased cultural figures has been launched in Ukraine

Ukraine has launched the first online project to commemorate cultural figures killed in the full-scale war, “Killed by Russia: Ukrainian Culture Makers“. This is a joint initiative of state institutions and NGOs with expertise in memory preservation, human rights and advocacy. The project aims to record the names of Ukrainian cultural figures whose creative progress has been cut short by Russia since 2022.

Co-initiators of the project: PEN Ukraine, INDEX: Institute for Documentation and Exchange, Memorial Memory Platform, Raphael Lemkin Society, Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, Human Rights Centre ZMINA, HeMo: Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab.

Among the goals set by the initiators of the online project is to demand that the perpetrators of the crimes be brought to justice by advocating for the victims’ cases at the international level. In addition, the initiators seek to continue the work of the deceased cultural figures through commemorative events, media and book projects.

“We have joined the efforts of civil society and government institutions to ensure that the materials we have collected are disseminated by Ukrainian and foreign human rights defenders, journalists, diplomats, and politicians for advocacy purposes, telling the world about the talented Ukrainians whose lives were taken by Russia, about their legacy, and about the genocidal war that Russians are leading against us, our culture, and identity,” the project initiators say.

Currently, the platform contains the names of 181 Ukrainian cultural figures killed by Russia. However, the initiators of the project are aware that the monitoring is not official and exhaustive and that many crimes committed by Russians will become known later. Therefore, they urge you to share information by email: killedculturemakers@gmail.com.

The project notes that cultural figures include all those who have contributed to the development of Ukrainian culture: authors who have completed and presented works, those who have built cultural institutions in Ukraine, figures for whom the cultural field was the main professional field, and those whose work had an impact on the local community.

Currently, the monitoring of losses covers the years of the full-scale war, as the number of news about the dead cultural figures is constantly growing. So the initiative has focused on carefully recording the information that appears in real time. However, the project initiators are looking for opportunities to expand the monitoring to cover the entire period of the war that Russia started against Ukraine in 2014.

The coordinator of the online project “Killed by Russia: Ukrainian Culture Makers” is a Ukrainian journalist and PEN Ukraine’s communications manager Diana Deliurman. 

All the details about the project can be found on the website of the initiative “Killed by Russia: Ukrainian Culture Makers”.