Cultural destruction of Ukraine by Putin ...

[electric_blue68]

Poster Tommy C may have covered this angle. If he did I missed it.

(snip) From The Smithsonian Magazine (bold highlight is mine)

"Putin, though, claims that Ukrainians lack the history, culture and identity worthy of a national state separate from Russia. While drawing on periods of the czarist Russian Empire and the Soviet era to make his case, Putin denies crucial cultural realities."

(snip)

" The Ukrainian language, the country’s art and its history—including the Slavic-Christian state centered in Kyiv a thousand years ago, the 19th-century flowering of Ukrainian culture and nationalism, the post-World War I Ukrainian republic, the Ukrainian independence movement of the early 1990s and its reaffirming Orange Revolution in 2004 and the Euromaidan Revolution in 2013-2014—all represent an undeniable Ukrainian identity that is centuries in the making. Despite this, in 2014 Putin pursued his territorial ambitions by supporting ethnic Russian separatists in the Donbas region and forcibly taking Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula."

It goes on to talk about SCRI - Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative. They've saved art and artifacts from earthquake damage in Haiti, Nepal, and from bombings in Syria and Iraq by working with those countries' colleagues to set up facilities, and trainings for saving, and restoring items.

Ihor Poshyvailo director of the Maidan Museum in Kyiv was a Fulbright scholar at The Smithsonian during the Hatian cultural rescue. So he warned them after Putin took over The Crimea of Russification of it.
Destruction of around 500 religious sites, and a combined 200 of libraries, museums, and monuments has been documented, particularly in four major cities/areas.

There's an amazing photo of a statue in Odessa totally covered in sandbags to protect it from bombing.
(if they'd colored the sansbags in yellow, and blue it could have been it's own Art Object!)


I'm proud (even if it's not a perfect Institution) that The Smithsonian has helped to do these crucial rescues, set facilities, and trainings in these places, and now in Ukraine.

[fierywoman]

1. As this war began a year ago, I discovered that my two most influential violin

and viola teachers -- whom I'd always thought of as Russian-- were in fact Ukrainian.

[electric_blue68]

2. Oh, nice!...

I played the viola in 5th grade gifted class. I really wanted the violin, or clarinet. Got the clarinet in 6th.

I'd love to still learn the violin.
(on my list of "things to do if I ever win a big lotto prize!) 😄👍 🥰🎶🎻🎶🥰

[fierywoman]

5. ... if you have access to a violin, there's all kinds of stuff on YouTube about violin playing!...

[electric_blue68]

6. Aww, ty. No, no access....which is why it's on my lotto win list. 😄

[moondust]

3. On December 1, 1991,

a referendum on the Act of Declaration of Independence was held in Ukraine. An overwhelming majority of 92.3% of voters approved the declaration of independence. From 2 December 1991 onwards, Ukraine was globally recognized by other countries as an independent state.[5][6][7] Also on 2 December, the President of the Russian SFSR Boris Yeltsin recognized Ukraine as independent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum

End of story, Vlad. Now go fuck yourself.

[electric_blue68]

4. TY 👍 for info

[crickets]

7. K&R for visibility. 💛💙

[electric_blue68]

9. Ty

[Initech]

8. Putin and Medvedev are war criminals, they need to answer for what they have done.

[electric_blue68]

10. Hopefully some justice will happen. Like The Hauge. (I wouldn't object to a 6th story window either)

🌻🇺🇦🌻

[Initech]

11. Or a well placed missile.

That would hopefully take out Putin, Medvedev, and Putin's troll army.

[electric_blue68]

12. Heh.