Four years this fall, the U.S. military announced its intention to partner with the Smithsonian Institution For revive its legendary Monuments Menthe international task force that sought to protect Europe’s cultural heritage during World War II, including recovering and returning works of art looted by the Nazis during the conflict.
Now the 21st century iteration of the band is working on preserve the art and culture of Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion – and part of the Training of Officers of Military Monuments and Programs take place at Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“Part of the conversation here is how to document evidence of crimes,” Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative director Corine Wegener, who has led similar efforts since 2013 in Iraq, told the New York Times during a visit from the 353rd Civil Affairs Command Reserve Unit, stationed on Staten Island, to the institution. “We worked hard to develop a documentation methodology. You’re not just looking for broken items, but evidence of how they were broken.
With the help of the museum and the Smithsonian, Army soldiers also learn about the strategic importance of art in conflict. Putin claims that Ukraine does not have its own cultural heritage independent of Russia, so his efforts to destroy Ukrainian culture are aimed at erasing the nation’s identity.
Museum workers carry the sculpture of Ukrainian philosopher Hryhorri Skovoroda from the destroyed building of the Hryhoriy Skovoroda National Literary Memorial Museum in the village of Skovorodynivka, Kharkiv region, on May 7, 2022. Photo by Sergey Bobok/AFP via Getty Images.
Even how we identify cultural artifacts can be a tricky subject, as the Met learned when it reclassified painters Ivan Aivazovsky, Arkhyp Kuindzhi and Ilya Repinby from Russian to Ukrainian to more accurately reflect their background. It was a move that proved controversial in some quarters, prompting the museum to hire additional security guards.
The idea for the new Monuments Men is that deploying military officers with a background in a nation’s art and culture will help them salvage wartime works, and accurately access and document damage. that have already taken place during the implementation of the war zone. preservation techniques.
In a conflict zone, the culprit may be a bomb attack, but it may also be the result of vandalism and looting, or even a natural disaster. To prepare soldiers for what they might encounter in the field, the Army conducted simulations at the National Museum of the US Army, in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and organized a trip to Copán, a Mayan ruin in Honduras. (The First Class of 21 Army Monuments Officers Graduated last August.)
Concerns about Ukraine’s cultural heritage have been paramount since the start of the invasion in February 2022.
A man looks through a door of the Lviv National Art Gallery with sandbag-protected windows in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on March 7, 2022, 12 days after the Russia launched a military invasion against Ukraine. Photo by Yuriy Dyachyshyn/AFP via Getty Images.
“The United States is committed to helping the people of Ukraine protect and preserve their historically significant sites. Ukraine’s cultural heritage is irreplaceable, and its degradation or destruction would be a profound loss for the whole world. We are monitoring the situation closely and will speak out against Russia’s acts of destruction,” Lee Satterfield, assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, said in a statement. statement shortly after the outbreak of war, following destruction of a museum dedicated to the Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymatchenko.
In the first year of the invasion, there was evidence of some 1,600 cases of damage to Ukrainian cultural heritage sites, including more than 500 religious sites and 200 museums, archives and libraries, according to Smithsonian magazine. Among the most publicized incidents was a Russian airstrike that hit Mariupol Drama Theaterwhich served as shelter for civilians.
In February 2023, the US State Department Office of Educational and Cultural Affairs committed to spending $7 million for its Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Response Initiative, dedicated to assisting Ukraine in its efforts to defend its cultural heritage. But the threat remains serious, with recent reports of ART news that the catastrophic collapse of the Kakhova dam flooded the house-museum of the self-taught Ukrainian artist Polina Rayko.
