"When experiences become knowledge": on October, 10, a discussion on how testimonies about war experiences are transformed into knowledge will be held as part of the Forum of Oral History of Ukraine

Preparations are underway for the first offline meeting of Ukrainian and international documentation initiatives – the Forum of Oral History of Ukraine, which will take place on October 10, 2023 in Kyiv. The initiator of the Forum is the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation. During the event, three discussion panels are planned, the participants will discuss various aspects of the documentation of the war in Ukraine.

One of the discussions, entitled "When experiences become knowledge", will be devoted to the transformation of documented experiences of war into knowledge about this war, and how this knowledge later becomes the basis for remembering it.
Speakers of the discussion:

— Agata Tatarenko — head of the Visegrád Group of the Institute of Central Europe in Lublin, member of the editorial board of the "Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe" (online);

— Anton Drobovych — public figure and statesman, expert in historical memory, head of the Institute of National Memory;

— Olha Opalenko — head of the evidence department of the NGO Truth Hounds, which collects evidence of war crimes and serious violations of human rights in the context of the war in Ukraine;

— Gelinada Grinchenko — doctor of historical sciences, professor of the Department of Ukrainian Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, head of the Ukrainian Oral History Association (online);

— Olena Dobrzhanska — candidate of political sciences, associate professor, vice-rector for scientific and pedagogical work of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.*

The discussion will be moderated by Nataliia Kryvda, doctor of philosophy, cultural researcher, professor of the Department of Ukrainian Philosophy and Culture of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

*The list of speakers is being updated.

During the discussion panel, the following questions will be covered:
— the transformation of documented experiences into knowledge about the war, and later — into social and historical memory;
— how testimonies and experiences become data immediately after documentation;
— peculiarities and challenges of working with newly documented data arrays;
— formation of remembrance policies at the public and state level: the role of all institutions and initiatives involved in documenting war experiences;
— formation of narratives about the war: the role of the state, society, independent institutions, etc.

The event is an initiative of the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, which documents firsthand testimonies of civilians about the war and has already collected more than 85,000 testimonies.

The Forum will be held in partnership with the USC Shoah Foundation and the Oral History Association, with the support of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University (Lublin).

Participation in the Forum is free and possible with prior registration and confirmation from the hosts. Registration is available at https://forms.gle/UB8Z1c8LaZ56Nnpt8 and is open until October 8, 2023.

For press accreditation issues, please contact Olha Nosyk at [email protected].

For registration and additional questions, contact Volodymyr Kapustin at [email protected].

Follow the news of the Forum on its Facebook page: https://fb.me/e/1vf7B6r1P

and on the website of Museum of Civilian Voices https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/en/news