To enter Potocki Palace, a gem of Ukrainian architecture, you have to introduce yourself, pass by armed soldiers and under some piers. All this to see the blank walls.
Life in Lviv in western Ukraine has somewhat returned to normal since Russian troops left the Kyiv region to focus their offensives on the south and east of the country.
But museums in the self-proclaimed cultural capital continue to fear that the invaders will destroy Ukrainian culture just as they destroyed cities. “We want to open a little more, but security is difficult,” Vassyl Mytsko, deputy director of the National Gallery in Lviv, is right.
“How do we know the Russians aren’t regaining their strength to launch their rockets at us?” he asks. Gallery workers were stunned when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. “We didn’t think the attacks would go this far,” Mytsko says.
The museum’s curators were initially taken aback, and some began packing the statues and paintings, which amounted to millions, to be taken to safe havens.
Potocki, who opened only to AFP, is no exception. Workers took advantage of the absence of canvas to paint the walls. Since the beginning of May, two other National Gallery locations on the outskirts of Lviv have started to reopen to the public from time to time.
Image: SERGEY BOBOK / AFP
However, Mytsko notes that the city’s museums are unlikely to open their doors “until there is a major change in politics or the field.”
Kremlin troops bombed a museum dedicated to the artist Maria Primachenko near Kyiv and a museum dedicated to the philosopher Grigori Skovoroda in Kharkov. Therefore, they still pose a threat to Lviv. “They want to destroy their Ukrainian identity and their European roots,” he says.
ruined
Roman Shmelik, director of the Lviv Historical Museum, also suspects the potential risk. The museum’s collection is divided into ten centuries-old buildings, but only two of them opened on May 1 – one for its cafe and the other for the children’s exhibit.
The buildings remain empty and their treasures have been moved elsewhere. Shmelik, World War II of the Soviets. He remembers how he controlled Lviv during World War II and how he turned the museum into a “propaganda tool”.
“They took the permanent display and replaced it with a display glorifying the Red Army,” he recalls angrily.
Across the country, the Soviets “acted like a bulldozer” join Mykola Bevz, a professor of architecture at Lviv University who helped the city gain heritage “status” from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).
With its 3,000 monuments, Lviv was more successful than other cities in avoiding Soviet “urban planning”. First, because the “cradle of Ukrainian patriotism” fell into the hands of the Soviets, albeit late, and secondly, because it was “an intellectual movement that put up a skillful resistance.”
In addition, Lviv residents managed to save the historical part of the city, which had to be demolished to build a large square for military parades, adds Bevz.
Mytsko says that his predecessor at the gallery, Boris Voznitsky, managed to enrich the museum’s collection of religious artifacts, despite the official Soviet policy of atheism.
Identifying with these defenders of the Ukrainian heritage, Shmelik emphasized the importance of preserving Lviv museums “to contribute to the formation of our national identity”.
“We are Ukrainians and we have nothing to prove,” says Shmelik, confronted by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that he has no Ukrainian identity because Russians and Ukrainians are the same people.
source: Noticias
