Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought searing images of human tragedy to witnesses around the world: thousands of civilians killed and injured; broken families, as mothers and children leave in search of refuge while fathers and other men stay behind to defend their country; and millions of refugees having already fled to neighboring countries, after just two weeks of war.
In addition to that human suffering, a second tragedy comes into focus: the destruction of a country’s very culture. Across Ukraine, scores of historic buildings, priceless artworks and public squares are being reduced to rubble by Russian rockets, missiles, bombs and gunfire.
In 2010, I saw some of Ukraine’s vibrant — and, sadly, often overlooked — culture firsthand while writing a travel article about the beautiful, centuries-old wooden churches in the western region of Zakarpattia. At the time, there was very little in the way of infrastructure for tourists in the area, despite the attraction of stunning buildings like the Church of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin, an immense woodwork construction dating from 1619, which I visited in the village of Novoselytsia. A few years later, however, the wooden churches — or tserkvas — of the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine and nearby Poland were added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, which seeks to highlight “cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity.”
That list currently includes seven sites scattered throughout Ukraine, all of which are obviously in grave danger, while many other important sites have already been damaged, if not destroyed. The internationally recognized memorial at Babyn Yar — a ravine near Kyiv where the Nazis massacred more than 33,000 Jews in two days in 1941, followed by an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 others over subsequent years — was near a Russian missile attack on March 1 that, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, killed at least five people.
In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Russian attackers hit multiple landmarks, including the city’s sprawling Freedom Square, home to Derzhprom, or the Palace of Industry, an eye-popping constructivist building dating from 1928 that is currently on a UNESCO “tentative” list for consideration as a World Heritage site in the future. The nearby Kharkiv State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre and next-door Kharkiv Philharmonic were reduced to ruins.
In a televised address to the European Parliament, Zelenskyy highlighted the destruction of one of the largest public squares in Europe.
“Can you imagine, this morning, two cruise missiles hit Freedom Square? Dozens were killed. This is the price of freedom. We are fighting, just for our land and for our freedom,” he said. “Every square, after today, no matter what it is called, is going to be called Freedom Square, in every city of our country.”–NYT
