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4 OUR LIFE • September-October 2023 Decolonizing Ukrainian Culture: A New Project for UNWLA Branches Oksana Piaseckyj, UNWLA Culture Chair As the war in Ukraine raged with horrific conse - quences, the world’s attention to a forgotten Ukraine emerged. A new awareness of Ukraine made it pos - sible to break through barriers, creating new possi - bilities for communication. One area of impossible dialogue existed for decades in the realm of Ukrain - ian culture. Decades of sovietization and disinfor - mation propagated by the russian empire created a false and demeaning impression of Ukraine’s art, music, and literature. Ukraine’s artists, composers, and writers were not given the exposure that rus - sians had. The russian propaganda machine held control. The colonization of Ukrainian culture in the russian imperialistic framework created the image of a less developed art and misidentified our Ukrainian artists as russian. Although experts in the world of art wrote exten - sively about the importance of derussifying Ukraini - an art, they were met with resistance — until recent - ly, during the war, when the truth emerged about russian propaganda and opened the eyes of many. The UNWLA considers Ukrainian culture as one of its missions, promoting its fine art, folklore, music, and literature through a variety of community events and educational projects. To join the artistic community in Ukraine in its decolonization efforts became of utmost importance to the president of the UNWLA and its cultural chair. In May of this year, to initiate enthusiasm in all our branches, a workshop was presented on Zoom with Tetyana Filevska, the creative director of the Ukrain - ian Institute of Kyiv, whose aim is to spread cultur - al diplomacy in the world. The audience was im - pressed with Ms. Filevska’s accomplishments to date in decolonization and her engagement with others in the field. They work relentlessly to correct cultur - al misinformation and, after years of being denied a voice, were finally instrumental in correcting the na - tional identity of many Ukrainian artists from russian to Ukrainian, such as Kazymyr Malevych at the Mu - seum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as well as Ivan Aivazovsky, Arkhyp Kuindzhi, and Ilya Repin. To follow up on the instructive workshop, we or - ganized a plan to create a toolkit/handbook for our members so that they could easily navigate various pathways to correcting misinformation. With the very capable assistance of our summer intern Roma - na Mykhailevych, a Ukraine Global Scholars winner, a plan evolved. Ms. Mykhailevych, from Stryi, Ukraine, won a full scholarship to the Taft School in Connecticut and to Yale University, which she started this fall. With our cultural assignment requiring research experience and creativity, Romana’s accomplishments — 1st prize winner of the National Research Projects Com - petition in Philosophy and the author of the book Stryi to Chernihiv , the story of Ukraine’s war through photographs and her own travels through war-torn areas ( see story on facing page ) — were proof that she would be a very capable assistant. The handbook, Reclaiming Our Cultural Heritage , was recently distributed to all our branches. It should be an excellent resource for members in this national effort to decolonize Ukrainian culture.
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