The National Committees of Ukraine for the UNESCO “Information for All” (IFAP) and “Memory of the World” Programmes have appealed to UNESCO with a statement about the large-scale losses of the National Archival Fund of Ukraine caused by the armed aggression of the Russian Federation, and call on the international community to take urgent measures.
Since 2014, Russia has systematically carried out the illegal seizure, destruction, and export of archival documents from the occupied territories of Ukraine. Dozens of archival institutions were affected, including: the State Archives of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson regions, as well as numerous district, city, labour, and other archives.
In 2022, more than 1,500 archival collections were stolen from the State Archives of the Kherson Region – approximately half of the holdings. In February of the same year, an archive in the Chernihiv region, which contained over 13,000 files of those repressed during the Stalinist period, was burned down because of a missile strike.
Archives in Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Cherkasy regions and the city of Kyiv were damaged because of shelling.
As the statement says, such actions are a gross violation of international law, in particular the 2015 UNESCO Recommendations on the Preservation of Documentary Heritage.
“We urge the international community to remember that, under Clause 5.4 of the 2015 UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Preservation of, and Access to, Documentary Heritage Including in Digital Form, ‘to the best of their ability, Member States should take all appropriate measures to safeguard their documentary heritage against all human and natural dangers to which it is exposed, including the risks deriving from armed conflicts. Likewise, they should refrain from acts likely to damage documentary heritage or diminish its value or impede its dissemination or use, whether it is to be found on the territory of one Member State or on the territory of other States’,” the message says.
The Ukrainian National Committees for UNESCO call on the international community to:
- Recognize the actions of the Russian Federation regarding Ukrainian archives as a crime against the Ukrainian people, against humanity, and against the collective memory of humankind.
- Appeal to the Russian Federation to immediately stop the destruction, theft and export of Ukrainian archival funds.
- Demand the return of all illegally removed archival documents and payment of compensation for the damage caused.
- Include information about these crimes in UNESCO reports, in particular in the reports of the Director-General to the 43rd and 44th sessions of the General Conference.
Despite the difficult circumstances, Ukraine is taking all possible measures to protect its archival heritage – digitalization of funds, moving documents to safe storage, and their evacuation from dangerous territories are being carried out.
