On July 1, at the 5th extraordinary meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO, the element “Culture of making Ukrainian borscht” was added to the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.
“Ukrainian cuisine is closely related to our culture and history. Borscht is generally an element of unification and national identification of all Ukrainians. Every family in all regions of our country has its own recipe for this dish. Local products also differ. But, actually, borscht should be associated exclusively with Ukraine. Because it is here it has been started preparing hundreds of years ago and to this day it is prepared the best. From now on, the Ukrainian borscht is officially under the protection of UNESCO. No one has the right to assign ours,” said Oleksandr Tkachenko, Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine.
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Thus, the members of the Committee noted in the decision that the element performs the function of social integration and cohesion, which serves to unite the people of Ukraine, regardless of age, gender or origin. In this sense, the element demonstrates the important role of intangible cultural heritage during armed conflicts and emergency situations.
It should be reminded that, taking into account the threats toward the Ukrainian cultural heritage due to russian aggression, the MCIP (the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine) appealed to the UNESCO Secretariat with a request to transfer the previously submitted nomination to the UNESCO List of Urgent Safeguarding.
All this became possible thanks to the efforts of experts Yevhen Klopotenko and Maryna Sobotyuk with the support of the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UNESCO, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the Embassy of Ukraine to French Republic
