2024 © eng: genocide-copyright
In 2017, the Hall of Memory and the territory of the Memorial were visited by 190 thousand visitors, which is almost the same as last year. This only shows that despite the stereotypical view of the Holodomor as a “black page” in our history, Ukrainians seek to know the truth, and most importantly - share their family memories and stories with us, since they position the museum as an institution that investigates, preserves and promotes the theme of the genocide of Ukrainians carried out by the communist Soviet government in 1932-1933.
The museum staff conducted 620 excursions in Ukrainian and English For visitors, as numerous Ukrainian guests from Europe, America and Asia are willing to visit our museum. Due to the provision of paid services (entrance tickets, excursions, sale of souvenirs) in 2017 the museum received 630 thousand UAH.
Since 2010, the visit to the Holodomor Victims Memorial has been included in the mandatory procedure in accordance with the State Protocol and the Ceremonial. Hence in 2017, the museum hosted delegations from the USA, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Vatican, Belarus, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Latvia, Malta and Poland.
The 2017 year was the year of intensification of our international cooperation, and here it is worth mentioning the interest to Ukraine and our history. Since 2015, the museum has been a member of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, a project designed to investigate the crimes and activities of totalitarian regimes in Europe in the twentieth century and prevent them. As part of this collaboration, in August, the Head of the Department Yana Hrynko, as part of the Platform team, took part in the evaluation of the exposition of the newly opened museum - the House of European History in Brussels. The result of the work was the number of comments on the exposition, in particular on the presentation of the totalitarian Soviet regime history in Ukraine, since the authors of the exposition called the Nazi regime totalitarian, and the Communist - no. A professional discussion has led to raising by the Platform the issue of re-exposure due to numerous scientific errors. In November 2017, the Director General, Olesia Stasiuk, took part in the annual Platform Conference held in Vilnius (Lithuania). One of the results of the trip was the establishment of cooperation with the museums of this country telling about the totalitarian Soviet past, and plans for joint projects. Among other things, the Holodomor Victims Memorial participated in the preparation of the Platform project, dedicated to the Day of Memory and Reconciliation, which told about some women from those countries where in the twentieth century communist regimes operated, as well as in determining the winner of the Platform Award, which is given to people who are fighting today against totalitarianism, for democratic values, the foundations of the rule of law and rights of the man and of the citizen.
In November, a museum employee participated in an informational trip “The Culture of Memory Culture: the Process of the Communist Tyranny History and Denazification” to Germany, which lasted from November 19 to 25, 2017, and was organized by the Goethe-Institut and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany. We hope that the best examples of the educational work of these museums will be used later in our work.
During the year, the museum provided numerous scientific consultations to colleagues from Europe and the USA, in particular, consulted director Alina Holovina, who, on request of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Slovak Republic, filmed a documentary about the Holodomor; American writer Kevin Hancock, who plans to devote one of the chapters of his new book to the Holodomor issue; a British journalist photographer, Taji Farouki, who was preparing a series of materials for the British press on the Holodomor. The result of such cooperation in the previous year was the December presentation of the film by Norwegian director Sven Beckendaal “Opening Ukraine. A sad story.” At the stage of the filming the museum staff provided advice.
In summer of 2017, employees of the museum's research department carried out expeditionary trips to the Fastivskii, Berezanskii, Kyiv-Sviatoshynskii and Obukhivskii districts of the Kyiv region for video and photophixation of evidence of Holodomor eyewitnesses, thereby completing our testimonies base, which we as well as researchers and the media use in our work. We are continuing to work on the elaboration of testimonies archive of Holodomor witnesses stored in our museum. Based on questionnaires (they are filled by visitors who are well aware of the names of their relatives killed in 1933, and which are not included in the regional volumes of the National Book of Memory of the Holodomor victims), we create the People's Book in memory of victims of the 1932-1933 Holodomor, which today contains about 30,000 names. Also during the year the Senior Collections Specialist carried out the attribution of the objects of the museum fund.
In November, on the basis of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, the Holodomor Victims Memorial together with the Ukrainian Genocide Holodomor Foundation (Chicago, USA), with its financial support, and with the support of the Institute of Archeography and Source Studies named after M. Hrushevsky, the Institute of Art Studies, Folklore Studies and Ethnology named after M Rylsky, Ukrainian Institute of National Memory held the International Scientific and Practical Conference "The Problem of the Holodomor Study in the 21st Century: Figures, Sources, Conclusions", on the materials of which a collection of scientific works is being prepared.
This year, in collaboration with the Ukrainian Genocide Holodomor Foundation (Chicago, USA), the Museum published a collection of materials of the International Scientific and Practical Conference “The Holodomor of 1932-1933: the Loss of the Ukrainian Nation”, which was held on October 4, 2016 by the National Museum of “Holodomor Victims Memorial” on the basis of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. In October 2017, the collection was presented at the Holodomor Symposium in Fresno (California, USA). After the presentation of the collection in the museum, we sent it to regional scientific libraries of all regional centres of Ukraine and leading national and regional universities, in order to ensure that the results of the work of scientists, the latest research on the Holodomor will became available to all who are interested.
During the year a number of exhibitions were prepared by the museum's staff. The project “The Hunger Symphony” was the result of cooperation with the poet Lilia Perehuda and the photographer Ksenia Piliavska. The exhibition “The Broken Circle”, created in cooperation with the Museum of Books and Printing of Ukraine and the National Historical Library of Ukraine, was devoted to the topic of the deformation authorities of the traditional way of life of Ukrainians by the Soviet and the introduction of a new calendar, new order and new holidays in the lives of Ukrainians of the Soviet empire. The exhibition “We were killed because we are Ukrainian” was created on the materials of the central Ukrainian archives and proves the genocidal nature of the artificial famine - the Holodomor committed to Ukrainians in 1932-1933. We are pleased that posters exhibitions developed by museum employees in previous years continue their life and this year they were exhibited in museums of Vinnytsa, Chernihiv, in diplomatic missions of Ukraine abroad.
Also this year, the museum became the site for the implementation of an experimental artistic project by doctoral student at the University of Leeds (Great Britain) Sarah Nesteruk – “Recipes for baking bread”. She worked for a week at the museum's exposition and created a series of animated stories on the Holodomor.
In 2017 the staff of the museum prepared a new thematic excursion “Holodomor: the Voices of Witnesses”, an interactive lesson “How to distinguish between truth and fake media” and the educational master class “Let's not extinguish a candle of memory”. Not only do they tell about certain aspects of the history of the Holodomor or return us the knowledge and practical skills of particular elements of traditional culture, which was deformed and destroyed in Soviet times, but also teach the foundations of democracy, teach students to be the ones who will build a new, democratic, civil society in Ukraine.
In the previous year, the Holodomor Victims Memorial, together with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (Winnipeg, Canada), filmed the educational movie “Covering the Holodomor: The Memory Eternal”, the plot of which focuses on the international press, which published information on the Holodomor and the struggle of the media. In 2017, the museum staff made a project on distribution this movie to history teachers in the regions of Ukraine. With the assistance of regional education departments and regional historical museums, such meetings (with a review, discussion of the movie and the Holodomor topic) were held in Lviv, Kharkiv, Poltava, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhia, Chernihiv, Kramatorsk, Severodonetsk and Vinnytsia.
This year we also paid attention to the creation of branded souvenirs (stationery, handbags for books with a logo of the museum, postcards, badges, magnets), which guests can buy at the box office in memory of visiting the museum, thereby supporting гі. We have achievements in the direction of advertising. Thanks to the aero3dengineering company, the Holodomor Victims Memorial has a 3D tour of the Hall of Memory.
The beginning of the process of building the museum was declared by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Decree No. 754 “Preparation of the construction of the second line of the National Museum ‘Holodomor Victims Memorial’” of October 26, 2016. According to it, an Organizing Committee for the preparation of the construction of the second line was formed. And exactly in a month, on November 26, 2016, during the mournful events on the Day of Holodomor Victims' Remembrance, the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko announced to the whole world: "In 2007, a memorial complex was set up, which became a pilgrimage site for many Ukrainians. But the museum part, which would correspond to the best world examples of museum-memorial art, has not yet been built. I am convinced that we should start working to create a decent museum institution”.
For the implementation of the project, on the instructions of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine established the State Unitary Enterprise “Directorate for the construction of the second phase of the National Museum ‘Holodomor Victims Memorial’”, to which the functions of the client for the reconstruction of the first line and the design and construction of the second line of the National Museum ‘Holodomor Victims Memorial’ were transferred and which completed the work on the Design Challenges, the Draft Design and received a positive assessment from the UNESCO Central Election Advisory Body.
The National Museum of the Holodomor Victims Memorial was tasked with creating the concept of the Holodomor Museum in the Memorial complex dedicated to the Holodomor victims of 1932-1933, which was approved by the Organizing Committee on April 4, 2017. On the instructions of the Organizing Committee, in July 2017 an International Working Group was formed on the basis of the National Museum “Holodomor Victims Memorial” to work on the concept of the museum's exposition, which includes experts from Ukraine, Poland and the United States. On October 17, 2017, the concept of the exposition of the museum was presented at a meeting of the Organizing Committee and adopted as a basis, with the condition of further refinement. At the moment, close cooperation with specialists of Ukrainian National Memory Institute on refinement of the concept, its details and expansion is being conducted. In the near future, its public presentation will be held for a wide range of specialists (historians and museum workers) and the media.
We have a lot of plans for the year 2018 and we sincerely believe that we are able to implement them all!
