My friend and colleague
Ihor Poshyvailo´s museum, the Ivan Honchar Museum in Kyiv, published the
following post on Facebook on 30 November: “Ivan Honchar Museum supports the
national protests against the government policy and police crimes against the
student protesters, and encourages people to join the current people movement
for the democracy. Do not be indifferent - come to the Maidan! We can only win
being together!". I was deeply impressed with such a bold statement by a national museum and asked Ihor to share with us his thoughts on
the role museums can play in their societies at historic moments, such as the ones currently going on
in Ukraine. I have no words to thank Ihor for this beautiful text. mv
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| Photo: Bohdan Posyvailo |
On December the 1st, my
American colleague and friend Linda Norris published the post If I ran a museum in Kyiv right now in her blog The
Uncataloged Museum. It was a prompt response of this museum expert,
well-known in Ukraine, to the riot police night attack on the peaceful
protesters, mostly students, in Kyiv. A wave of demonstrations and civil unrest
began in late November due to a massive public outpouring for closer European
integration in Kyiv and was named ‘Euromaidan’. It was claimed by Guy
Verhofstadt, Member of the European Parliament, former Prime Minister of
Belgium, to be the biggest pro-European demonstration in the history of EU.
Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary at the United States Department,
underscored that Euromaidan is symbol of the power of civil society: “It is
about justice, civil rights and the people’s demands to have a government that
listens to them, that represents their interests and that respects them.”
In her post, Linda puts
herself in a Ukrainian museum director’s shoes and offers a program of action
in three museum spheres: representing community values and ethics, serving the
community, and collecting. In particular, she would make a public statement,
take a look at the ethical practices and transparency of her own museum, throw
open the museum doors and invite the public in for free. Keeping the museum open early and late, she
would have cups of hot tea ready, provide a warm place for reflection and
contemplation, and find a space in the gallery for people to write or draw
about their hopes and fears; encourage participants to think about Ukraine as a
nation, about beauty, truth and complicated histories. Even more – she would
permit and even encourage the staff to take part in the protests if they so
desired. If Linda was the director of a history museum, she would be out
collecting lots of potential exhibits for the future, starting from Tweets and
Facebook postings, oral histories, flags, banners and hand-made signs and
photographs to metal barriers,
face-masked helmets and police uniforms, and even home-made antidotes
for tear gas.
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| Photo: Bohdan Posyvailo |
Indeed, a simple,
effective, and seemingly common reaction for a typical American or Western
Museum. A museum which is 'about', 'for' and 'with' people. Such was the topic
for discussion proposed by my another great colleague and friend Maria Vlachou
at the European Museum Advisors Conference in Lisbon last year (here). Serving the community is
especially important for modern museums, which are becoming active agents of
communication, operating not only explicitly at the level of objects of
history, science, culture, education or entertainment, but also at an implicit
level, approaching spheres of power, ideology, values, and identity.
But for me, in the context
of recent events in Kyiv, the combination of words ‘museum with people’ gains a
new, special meaning. This seems quite a clear, even banal, phrase. But is it
common for Ukraine and other post-Soviet nations? Do our museums want, can and
know how to be with people today? Especially in a period of social uprisings
and political tensions, in unusual situations, which require from a museum an
open and honest look into the eyes of its current and potential visitors, of
the communities it represents.
It happened historically
that most museums in Ukraine are state-run and, therefore, they depend
ideologically, economically and administratively on the government. So, how
should they behave in a deep conflict between government and society? I hope
for many museums the answer is theoretically obvious – same as for army and
riot police soldiers who took the oath “to serve their people”. Do Ukrainian
museums remain indifferent observers of the breath taking and internationally
covered events at Independence Square? How can they be responsive and inclusive
to the needs of the society and communities they represent and serve?
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| Photo: Bohdan Poshyvailo |
Ironically, at the moment the President of Ukraine
Yanukovych was visiting the Museum of Qin Terra-cotta Warriors in China and
writing a review in the book of honourable guests, ICOM Ukraine and a number of
Ukrainian museums were issuing public statements condemning unexpected
crackdown on peaceful protesters and the pulling out of an association pact
with the EU. The Directors Council of Lviv Museums coordinated protest
statements of a number of Lviv museums. One of the oldest ethnographic museums
in East-Central Europe – the Museum of Ethnography and Crafts in Lviv –
displayed a banner on its balcony saying "We support the demands of
Euromaidan". In Kyiv a dozen museums made their public statements,
including the Museum of Kyiv History which is run by the City Hall and depends upon
the Mayor of Kyiv, whose headquarters were taken by the protesters. Pavlo
Tychyna Memorial Museum (located closely to Maidan) opened its doors to
protesters and proposed them tea, rest and cultural programs. The Historical
Museum-Preserve "Tustan" in the Lviv Region asked people on facebook
to bake honey-cakes, "Knights of Goodness", write a message of
support and send them to the freezing activists. The Ivan Honchar Museum, which
glorifies the eternal traditional virtues of the Ukrainian people – freedom,
faith, honour, democracy and humanism, shifted its educational programs to
Euromaidan. It launched a series of flash mobs (such as the installation and
decoration of the main Ukrainian traditional symbol of Christmas – Didukh
("the spirit of ancestors") - at the foot of the monument of
Independence) and organized folk celebrations, dancing and singing at the
epicentre of the protest area.
Virtually all museums in
Ukraine are government run and funded. Of course, there is a worry regarding
possible repercussions. We know about the director of the famous Territory of
Terror Museum in Lviv, who was summoned for questioning at the Investigation
Department of the prosecutor's office as "a witness" to events at
Euromaidan. We heard the story of a Kyiv metro driver who was fired just for
telling his passengers how to find the shortest way out of the blocked central
stations and join the protesters. We heard about dismissed commanders of the
riot police forces in some regions, whose soldiers refused going to Kyiv and attack
the protesters.
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| Photo: Bohdan Poshyvailo |
Of course the Tahrir Square
syndrome is still vivid in the memories of many museum professionals, but I
think the Ukrainian Euromaidan is a great chance for many museums to test their
ability to be with the people. I saw this need in twinkling eyes of peaceful
protesters in the past three weeks. And I drew the conclusion that in
order to be with people our museums should not necessarily do extraordinary
things, the should firstly listen carefully to the pulse rate of their nation
and open their doors to frozen hearts.
Ihor Poshyvailo is an Ethnologist with a PhD from the
Institute of Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology, National Academy of
Sciences(1998). He is the Deputy Director of the National Center of Folk
Culture “Ivan Honchar Museum” (Kyiv). Co-moderator and
co-organizer of international museum
management seminars (since 2005). Participant in the International Visitor Program (USA,
2004), Global Youth Exchange Program (Japan, 2004) and The World Master’s
Festival in Arts and Culture (Korea, 2007). Curator of international art
projects, including the traveling exhibition “Smithsonian Folklife Festival:
Culture Of, By, and For People” (2011), “Interpreting Cultural Heritage”
(2011), “Home to Home: Landscapes of Memory” (2011-2012). He was a Fulbright
Scholar at the Smithsonian Center of Folklife and Cultural Heritage (2009-2010)
and a Summer International Fellow at the Kennedy Center
(2011-2013). Ihor wrote another post for this blog in 2012, entitled
Reinventing and making museums matter.
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