“Our Culture Is the Only Way to Understand Who We Are”: A Discussion and Exhibition Held in the USA With Support of the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation
The Meridian International Center in partnership with SCM and the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation’s Museum of Civilian Voices held a panel discussion and opened a multimedia cultural exhibition Partners on the Frontline: Ukraine-U.S. Fight for Peace, Justice, Global Security and Cultural Resilience. The event took place on 15 November 2023 in Washington, DC, USA.
The purpose of the event is to shed light on Russia’s deliberate efforts to undermine Ukrainian culture and traditional core values shared by communities around the world. The event became a platform for recognizing the importance of a U.S.-Ukraine alliance against anti-democratic principles.
“This is a forum about where we are going in this world. Art is a way to see this conflict in such a manner as to acutely feel the sacrifices of people in Ukraine. It is important to move forward and not to think of this event as just one evening,” said Ambassador Stuart Holliday, Chief Executive Officer of the Meridian International Center.
Natalya Yemchenko, Public Relations and Communications Director at System Capital Management and member of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation’s supervisory board, emphasized, “The best and only way to understand who we are and where we come from is our culture... Ukraine is a state with its own culture and history”.
Kateryna Smagliy, the First Secretary of the Embassy of Ukraine in the USA, noted that as of today, Russian invaders have destroyed 1,709 historical objects and 92 museums in Ukraine. The damage caused to cultural heritage has reached USD 7 million.
Yuliia “Taira” Paievska, a Ukrainian military servicewoman, paramedic, volunteer, and goodwill ambassador, was among the speakers at the event.
“They first captured teachers, writers, and cultural figures. All Ukrainian books were removed from the library. They took everything that looked like a representation of Ukrainian culture... The Ukrainian language was a marker for getting into a prison. What civilians endure is beyond the boundaries of good and evil,” said Yuliia, who survived Russian captivity.
Evgeniy Maloletka, photojournalist, Pulitzer Prize Winner, also joined the discussion.
“This story is about how important and meaningful information is. We are journalists; we do not produce steel, but we produce facts,” Evgeniy said about his work on documenting the frontline events in Ukraine.
The Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation has been collecting first-person stories of Ukrainian civilians about the war since 2014. Its archive now has more than 90,000 stories. Share your story on the Museum’s portal https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/ or via the toll-free hotline 0 (800) 509 001.
