On May 12, the first meeting of the Polish-Ukrainian-Lithuanian working group on digitalization of cultural heritage in Ukraine took place. The discussion was attended by Piotr Gliński, Vice-Prime Minister, Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, Jaroslaw Sellin, Deputy of Minister of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, Rimantas Mikaitis, Deputy of Minister of Culture of Lithuania and Anastasia Bondar, Deputy of Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine.
The countries of the ‘Lublin Triangle’ support Ukraine in the fight against the russian invaders. In addition, they are working with us on the digitalization of Ukrainian sites of tangible and immovable cultural heritage, as well as the creation of a digital platform for their preservation, protection, development and popularization. After all, they understand that Ukrainians are now at the forefront and defend world order and democracy. At the same time, new military realities for Ukraine are combined with the desire to join the European Union. So now it is the time to approach to European standards in the field of cultural heritage preservation.
“Since the beginning of russia’s aggressive invasion of Ukraine, russian crimes against Ukraine’s cultural heritage have been unprecedented. More than 300 cases of barbaric destruction or damage of our churches, theaters, museums, libraries, and historic buildings by russian enemies have been recorded. The digitalization of this sphere will help better to preserve everything Ukrainian, and after the victory – to restore and popularize our heritage quicker,” said Oleksandr Tkachenko, Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine.
Anastasia Bondar, Deputy of Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine, presented to the working group the vision of a comprehensive state policy in the field of digitalization of cultural heritage. She also presented the project of the National Platform of Cultural Heritage of Ukraine in the management of the state museum fund – E-Museum, which plans to create a single portal of cultural values of the Museum Fund of Ukraine. The creation of such a platform includes amendments in legislation and creation of software, as well as many digital tools for structuring and managing Ukraine’s cultural heritage.
“We presented guidelines to our partners related to the digitalization of Ukraine’s cultural heritage. These are areas which need to be implemented now, without delaying till our victory. Today, museums in uncontrolled territories are simply being looted by russians. The property of Ukrainians is taken to russia, violating all international norms. All these cases are recorded as crimes against our state and we will definitely fight for the return of each exhibit. But now it is important to go forward and digitalize the processes in the field of cultural heritage as much as possible,” claimed Anastasia Bondar.
Let’s remind that earlier Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland created the special fund “Lublin Triangle”, which supports the digitalization of Ukraine’s cultural heritage. This is the result of a declaration signed during the visit of the Ministers of Culture of Poland and Lithuania to Kyiv.
