Museums and ideology: How cultural institutions become instruments for authorities
Recently, the collection of the Museum of Contemporary History of Russia was “enriched” with a new showpiece. It was a crystal pendant from the chandelier of the Drama Theater in Mariupol, destroyed by Russian air bombs on March 16, 2022, during the Russian army’s assault on the city.
Ideological role of Russian museums in the war against Ukraine
In March 2022, with the initiative of the Russian Historical Society and under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, an intermuseum group was created. Its task was to collect items in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, particularly in Mariupol, that should tell about the so-called “special military operation” (that’s how Russians name the war they unleashed against Ukraine). This group included representatives of more than ten federal museums and educational institutions.
The Russian Historical Society is led by Sergey Naryshkin, director of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia. Things that members of the group collected during looting raids in the occupied territories of Ukraine became the basis of the “Ordinary Nazism” exhibition. The exhibition was held at the Victory Museum in Moscow and is now being actively shown in various regions of Russia. “Ordinary NATOcism” is the continuation of this project. Both exhibitions are aimed at discrediting Ukraine and its allies, and are organized by the “History of the Fatherland” fund, initiated by a decree of the president of Russia. The aforementioned organization is funded from the state budget and Sergey Naryshkin is the chairman of the fund’s board.
Head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin at the presentation of the exhibition ‘Ordinary Nazism’
Museums, dedicated to prominent figures of Ukrainian culture, such as the Lesia Ukrayinka Museum in Yalta, are being closed in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian cities. At the same time, the Russian occupiers are building new institutions for sharing propaganda such as the New Chersonesus: Museum of Crimea and Novorossiya in Sevastopol, the Victory Museum in Mariupol, and the History Park in Melitopol to glorify Russian war criminals, discredit the Ukrainian army, and impose glossy myths of Russia’s never existing “history” instead of Ukraine’s one.
Since 2022, representatives of the Russian museums have been involved in providing information support for Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, acting as a cover for Russian war crimes, and directly implementing the Kremlin regime policy. Russian museums have become propaganda tools used to spread disinformation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, abroad, and in Russia too.
Russian museum representatives are involved in the theft of Ukrainian museum collections and the appropriation of the history and culture of Ukraine, its indigenous peoples and national minorities. In this way, the Russian occupiers demonstrate what they consider the most dangerous for themselves. This is what they destroy, erase, steal, and appropriate.
Literary museums in Ukraine
- Kolodyazhny literary and memorial estate-museum of Lesya Ukrainka
- Forest Song Museum in Nechymne
- Literary and local history museum of Taras Shevchenko in Ordo-Vasylivka village
- Ivan Manzhura’s house-museum
general literary museums:
- Museum ‘Literary Prydniprovia’
- Memorial Museum of G. S. Skovoroda
- Museum of the Testament of Taras Shevchenko
- Museum ‘Taras Shevchenko’s outbuilding’
- Taras Shevchenko Literary Museum
- Museum-estate of Marko Vovchok
- Hryhoriy Kochur Literary Museum
museums dedicated to foreigners:
- Sholem Aleichem Museum of Classics of Jewish Literature
- V. M. Sosiura Literary and Memorial Museum
- B. D. Grinchenko Memorial Museum
general literary museums:
- City Museum of History and Culture of Luhansk
museums dedicated to Russians:
- Krasnodon Regional Museum of the Order of Friendship of Peoples ‘Young Guard’
- V. Dahl Literary Museum
- Odesa Literary Museum
museums dedicated to Russians:
- Odesa Literary and Memorial Museum of A. S. Pushkin
- Memorial Museum of K. G. Paustovsky
- Museum of Khristo Botev
- Museum-library of D. Pryliuk
- Chornostrovsky Museum of Literature and Local Lore of the Ukrainian biker poet L. I. Hlibov
general literary museums:
- Khmelnytskyi Regional Literary Museum
museums dedicated to Russians:
- A. Akhmatova Literary Memorial Museum
- Regional literary and memorial museum of N. Ostrovsky
- Vasyl Stus Museum
general literary museums:
- Debaltseve City Literary and Historical Museum
- Staromykhailivka City Library-Museum
museums dedicated to Russians:
- Museum of miniature books named after V. O. Razumov
- Novohrad-Volyn Literary and Memorial Museum of Lesia Ukrainka
- Romaniv Literary and Memorial Museum of M. Rylsky
- Museum of the Kosach family
general literary museums:
- Zhytomyr Regional Literary Museum
museums dedicated to foreigners:
- Verkhivnia Literary and Memorial Museum of Honore de Balzac
- District Folk Museum named after Joseph Conrad
museums dedicated to Russians:
- Zhytomyr Literary and Memorial Museum of V. Korolenko
- Les Martovych Literary Museum
- Folk Literary and Art Museum of Ulyana Kravchenko and Mykola Ustianovych
- Yavoriv District Literary and Memorial Museum of Osyp Makovei
- Yavoriv District Council
- Bohdan Ihor Antonych Memorial Museum and Estate
- Taras Shevchenko Folk Museum of the Lviv Palace of Arts
- Folk Museum of Father Markiyan Shashkevych (Novosilky village)
- Folk Museum of Father Markiyan Shashkevych (Derevnya village)
- Folk museum-estate of Markiyan Shashkevych
general literary museums:
- Museum ‘Literary Lviv of the first half of the twentieth century’
- Museum of Old Ukrainian Book Art
- Museum of the almanac ‘Mermaids of the Dniester’
- Museum of the literary and artistic association ‘Waves of Stryi’
museums dedicated to foreigners:
- Charitable Foundation ‘Bruno Schulz Museum and Festival’
- Shevchenko National Reserve
- Museum of Taras Shevchenko’s ‘Kobzar’
- Literary and memorial museum of the writer Ivan Le
- Horodyshche District Council
- Vasyl Symonenko Literary and Memorial Museum
- Lysiansk District Historical Museum named after Taras Shevchenko
- Stebliv Literary and Memorial Museum of Ivan Nechuy-Levytskyi
- National Reserve ‘Taras Shevchenko’s Homeland’
- Taras Shevchenko Literary and Memorial Museum
- Taras Shevchenko Literary and Memorial Museum
‘Museum of Taras Shevchenko’ in the village of Moshny - S. S. Gulak-Artemovsky Museum of the Horodyshche District Council
museums dedicated to Russians:
- Literary and Memorial Museum of A. S. Pushkin and P. I. Tchaikovsky
- Museum of the History of the Decembrist Movement
- Literary museum room of Ivan Dolhosh
- Literary museum of Mykhailo Ivanovych Tomchaniy
- Literary museum ‘Shevchenko’s room’
Taras Shevchenko Room-Museum at Mukachevo Secondary School No. 2 named after Taras Shevchenko - Literary Museum of Yuriy Stanynets ‘Red Yonotanochka’
general literary museums:
- Museum of the Book of the Transcarpathian Organisation of the National Union
- Mukachevo Literary and Art Museum
museums dedicated to Russians:
- Pushkin Literary Museum
- Nechayiv Literary and Memorial Museum of Y. Yanovsky
- Kirovohrad City Literary and Memorial Museum named after I. Karpenko-Kary
- Literary museum of fabulist Mykyta Godovanets
- Rivne Folk Literary and Memorial Museum of I. K. Mykytenko
- Kyiv Literary and Memorial House-Museum of M. Zankovetska
- National Museum of Taras Shevchenko
- Taras Shevchenko Literary and Memorial House-Museum
- Taras Shevchenko Memorial House-Museum
- Museum of prominent figures of Ukrainian culture L. Ukrainka, M. Lysenko, P. Saksahanskii, M. Starytskyi
- Kyiv Literary and Memorial Museum of Lesya Ukrainka
- Kyiv Memorial House-Museum of Mykhailo Starytskyi
- Kyiv Literary and Memorial Museum of Maksym Rylskyi
- Literary and Memorial Museum-apartment of P. Tychyna in Kyiv
- Kyiv Literary and Memorial Museum-apartment of N.P. Bazhan
museums dedicated to foreigners:
- Sholem Aleichem Museum
museums dedicated to Russians:
- Bulgakov Literary and Memorial Museum
Pushkin Museum in Kyiv
general literary museums:
- National Museum of Literature of Ukraine
- Museum of Books and Printing of Ukraine
- Central State Archive-Museum of Literature and Art of Ukraine
- Museum of the Sixties
- Yuriy Fedkovych Literary and Memorial Museum
- Literary and memorial museum of Olga Kobylianska
museums dedicated to foreigners:
- Mihai Eminescu Literary and Memorial Museum
- Ivan Vahylevych Literary and Memorial Museum
- Literary Museum of M. Cheremshyna
- Literary Museum of M. Cheremshyna (Diliatyn)
- Taras Shevchenko Literary Museum
- Ivan Franko Literary and Memorial Museum
- Les Martovych Literary and Memorial Museum
- Pyadych Literary Museum named after Myroslav Irchan
- Literary and memorial museum of V. Stefanyk
- Sniatyn Literary and Memorial Museum of M. Cheremshyna
- House-museum of L. Martovych
- Ivan Franko’s family house museum
- Museum of Mariyka Pidhiryanka
- Museum-room of Mariyka Pidhiryanka (Tlumach)
- Museum of Natalia Kobrynska
- Mykhailo Bazhansky Museum and Library
- Museum of Paraska Plytka-Horytsvit
general literary museums:
- Literary Museum of Prykarpattia
- Literary and local history museum (Lolyn village)
- Folk Museum of Hutsul Theatre of Hnat Khotkevych
- Museum of Kolomyia books
- Lesya Ukrainka Museum
- Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi Museum
general literary museums:
- Yalta Historical and Literary Museum
museums dedicated to Russians:
- House-museum of Anton Chekhov in Yalta
- Museum of Alexander Pushkin in Gurzuf
- Alushta Literary and Memorial Museum of Sergeev-Tsensky
- Feodosia Literary and Memorial Museum of A. S. Green
- Koktebel Ecological, Historical and Cultural Reserve ‘M. Voloshin’s Cimmeria’
- Chornukhy Literary and Memorial Museum of H. S. Skovoroda
- Poltava Literary and Memorial Museum of Panas Myrnyi
- Poltava Literary and Memorial Museum of I. Kotliarevskyi
- Literary museum of the Drahomanov family
- Kobeliak District Museum of Literature and Art named after Oleksii Kulyk
- Oles Honchar Literary and Memorial Museum-Estate
Biyevets Museum-Estate of V. Symonenko
Museums dedicated to foreigners:
- Myrhorod Literary and Memorial Museum of David Guramishvili
- museums dedicated to Russians:
- Bilytsia Literary and Memorial Museum of Mate Zalka
- Poltava Literary and Memorial Museum of V. G. Korolenko
- National Museum-Reserve of N.V. Gogol
- Velykosorochyn Literary and Memorial Museum of N. Gogol
- Manuylivka Literary and Memorial Museum of A. M. Gorky
- U. Samchuk Literary and Memorial Museum
general literary museums:
- Museum of books and printing
- Polissia Literary Museum
museums dedicated to Russians:
- M. Ostrovsky Literary and Memorial Museum
- Literary and Local Lore Museum of V. G. Korolenko
- Olesya Literary and Ethnographic Museum
- Oleksandr Oles Folk Museum
- Taras Shevchenko Museum
- Folk Museum of Ostap Vyshnia
- Folk Museum of Lesya Ukrainka
- Museum of Panteleimon Kulish at the library named after L. Tolstoy
- Museum of Taras Shevchenko
- Museum of the writer Leonid Poltava and Yosyp Dudka
museums dedicated to Russians:
- Anton Chekhov Memorial House-Museum in Sumy
- Bohdan Lepkyi Regional Communal Museum in Berezhany
- Velykyi Berezhets Literary and Memorial Museum of Oleksandr Neprytsky-Hranovskyi
- Tyliv District Literary and Memorial Museum of Ulas Samchuk
- Memorial museum-estate of the writer Ivanna Blazhkevych
- Folk museum of the Lepkykh family
- Vasyl Stus Memorial Museum
- Olena Kysilevska Literary and Memorial Museum
general literary museums:
- Berezhany City Museum of Books
museums dedicated to foreigners:
- Regional municipal literary and memorial museum of Juliusz Slovak in Kremenets
- Kharkiv Literary Museum
- National Literary and Memorial Museum of G. S. Skovoroda
- Room-museum of Hnat Khotkevych
general literary museums:
- October Library-Museum
- A. P. Bakhuta Literary and Memorial Museum
general literary museums:
- Scientific and Literary Department (Kherson Regional Museum of Local Lore, branch)
- Municipal institution ‘M. P. Stelmakh Literary and Memorial Museum’
- Taras Shevchenko Art Museum
- Museum of S. V. Rudansky
- Vasyl Stus Museum
- Museum of M. P. Trublaine
- Vinnytsia Literary and Memorial Museum of Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi
- Volodymyr Zabashtansky Literary Museum
general literary museums:
- Municipal institution ‘Museum of Literary Nemyrivshchyna’
- Pisky Historical and Memorial Museum of P. H. Tychyna
- Novhorod-Siverskyi Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve ‘The Tale of Igor’s Campaign’
- Chernihiv Literary and Memorial Museum of Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi Reserve
- Sosnytsia Literary and Memorial Museum of O. Dovzhenko
- Regional Historical and Memorial Museum-Reserve of Panteleimon Kulish ‘Hanna Pustyn’
- Vykhvostiv Museum of the story by Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi ‘Morgana’s Veil’
There are no separate literary museums in the region.
There are no separate literary museums in the region.
Historical retrospective: Turning museums into propaganda megaphones
In 1917-1919, the restoration of Ukrainian nationhood (for a short period of time) contributed to the formation of national institutions that were responsible for the preservation of cultural heritage. One of the tasks set by the government of the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UPR), and later by the government of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadsky, was establishing and developing national science and culture. Despite all adverse circumstances, despite the short period of time during which this government functioned (from April 29 to December 14, 1918), quite significant success was achieved in this field, especially in the times of the Second Hetmanate.
In particular, in 1918, the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences was established, which became the leading scientific institution that united the country’s intellectual elite. One of its many activities was museum work.
In 1919, after the Bolsheviks finally gained power on most of the territory of modern-day Ukraine, all scientific and cultural achievements of national governments became the property of the Soviet government. The Bolsheviks did not even create new governing bodies for museums and monument protection organizations. All they did was to reorganize the ones that already existed by changing their titles.
In the early 1920s, the main task of the Soviet government in Ukraine was to survive. The authorities didn’t have enough resources to formalize and impose its own humanitarian policy. In the first years under Soviet rule, most of the staff of scientific institutions and museums were qualified professionals. It was them who tried to establish the process of protecting and researching cultural and historical values, but gradually the Soviet government strengthened the process of centralization and museum institutions were formalized into a single system.
Most museums found themselves administratively subordinated to the People’s Commissariat of Education (organization analogous to a ministry). Professional museum workers, who were often members and employees of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, tried to protect the activities of museums from the interference of the People’s Commissariat of Education and resisted the idea of subordinating the entire museum network to the political education department of the Commissariat.
Starting with the middle of the 1920s, more government circulars and orders appeared, and they were required to restructure museum work in accordance with new political plans. In the late 1920s, political education work was strengthened at the state level and gradually became an integral part of museum activity. Authorities introduced various principles of construction and design of museum exhibitions: class and anti-religious struggle were brought to the forefront, as well as the benefits and “achievements” of the October Socialist Revolution. These exhibitions had a great emotional impact on visitors.
Excursions became essential for museum activity and played the role of channels through which information was conveyed to people. To receive feedback from visitors, special books were placed in museum halls. Along with descriptions of their impressions, visitors indicated their social status, position, party affiliation, age, and sometimes even address. A considerable number of reviews were written according to a similar scheme: they say that before the advent of Soviet rule, museums provided false information, but thanks to the current exhibitions, visitors finally knew what was true. An important detail of such feedback was the visitors’ promise to tell the information they received during the excursion at home.
The main efforts to work with audiences were to be directed at representatives of peasants, workers, military personnel, schoolchildren, and students. In general, such responses fit into the scheme of the Soviet propaganda construct “out with backwardness,” which was based on the contrast between “then” (before the October Revolution) and “now”: that “then” the people were deceived by landlords and lulled into a state of opium of religion, while “now” under Soviet rule, science and education “opened” their eyes.
It became a regular practice to plan exhibitions to coincide with certain dates that were important to the new government. Such museum activities were widely covered in the press and in documentaries.
Convenient, but not qualified builders of socialism
The professional staff of museums was being transformed into “builders of socialism.” Scientists and museum workers were “forced to understand” that being apolitical and engaging themselves in scientific research only actually meant an active rejection of Soviet rule. What was considered scientific achievements in the mid-1920s came to a tragic collision with new approaches to evaluation based on attention to Marxism in the mid-1930s. It was necessary to meet the demands of the young Soviet state. All “flaws” found in the work of museums were explained by the poor training of the museum workers and, in particular, their insufficient level of mastery of Marxist-Leninist theory.
The suicide of Danylo Shcherbakivsky, a prominent museum worker, historian, art historian, ethnographer, and archaeologist, is a great example of attitude of the Soviet government toward Ukrainian professionals. He could not withstand the pressure from the communist museum director who replaced Mykola Bilyashivsky as the head of the Kyiv Historical Museum.
Danylo Shcherbakivsky left a suicide note in which he named people who were guilty of his death. The museum worker understood that the pressure exerted on him — the creation of unbearable working conditions, attribution of non-existent mistakes and violations to him — would end either if he meekly adjusted to the demands of the new political system or by his dismissal. Shcherbakivsky could not adapt, nor could he leave his museum work, which, without exaggeration, was the work of his life.
A copy of Danylo Shcherbakivskyi’s suicide letter
The system of Soviet state security was implanted in society, later on the network of agents became total. Informants, recruited from all layers of population, formed their reports about the “sabotage” of museum workers, their “neglect” of their duties, their “ignoring” of proposals to “improve” museum activities put forward by various Soviet commissions. They discredited museum professionals, spread gossip about the theft of museum valuables by museum staff and monument guards, saying that they shamelessly used the opportunities they received through working with a large amount of nationalized socialist property.
Information that was obtained during surveillance by special services and received from secret agents was accumulated and then used in next waves of repressions against scholars and museum professionals. On the basis of this information fabricated investigations were opened and sentences were passed. An extensive network of informants created a high level of distrust of their colleagues within professional organizations.
Previous years of scientific museum work that had been built up were destroyed, and the new appointees — unprofessional party officials — suffered not only from their lack of education, but also from their inability to understand the directives of the Communist Party that were rapidly changing. Additionally, new officials feared having the same fate as their arrested predecessors, so they evirated the scientific museum work to align with the political climate, reducing it to a profanation.
As a result, museums became tools of the ideological machine that supported the Soviet totalitarian regime. The activities of each museum were assessed (and later molded) based on their ability to fulfill the ideological objectives. “Professional” staff were chosen in line with these objectives while those who did not meet the new criteria were ultimately dismissed.
Until 1991 when Ukraine gained its independence, there was a centralized network of museums in Ukraine that continued to implement the model of museum activity that was developed and established in the 1920s and 1930s.
Museums as tools of ideological education in the postwar period
After World War II, Soviet museums became key centers of ideological education, playing a vital role in shaping public perception. These institutions focused on educating visitors through their exhibits, which featured the history of the Soviet era. Permanent exhibitions showcased the achievements of national economic and cultural development, demonstrating charts that illustrated the “steady growth” of industrial production and the successes of Soviet culture. Slogans, that were actually Communist Party meetings materials, were displayed, reinforcing the state’s narrative and ideology.
Memorial and literary museums dedicated to “engineers of souls” ( the way Joseph Stalin called writers) also took their place in this ideological construction. This name reflected the mission entrusted to literature, which, in turn, corresponded to the concept of the Soviet model of social engineering, the Soviet experiment in building an artificial society.
Museums of “flat” fighters against the landlords and loyal contemporaries
Both in historical and local history museums, the teaching of national history was replaced by Soviet mythical distortions interspersed with information about real events and facts, and literary and memorial museums were dedicated to writers authorized by the Soviet authorities. It meant that their biographies and works were presented through the prism of socialist propaganda. Efforts were made to integrate such powerful figures as Taras Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrayinka, and Ivan Franko into the general Soviet narrative to “disarm” their literary and philosophical heritage.
Their biographies were mythologized, their views were distorted, and instead of real people, museum visitors were shown emasculated and “flat” figures. Thus, the figures of national writers and cultural actors whose creative heritage threatened communist ideology were turned into bronze symbols whose work was not interesting to readers or museum visitors.
Marko Vovchok Memorial Museum and Estate
Even with no overt Soviet slogans in the expositions, the very choice of writers to whom the museums were dedicated, the cities where these museums were created, and the approach to the design of exhibitions all conveyed certain messages, sometimes not obviously. Before World War II, museums for Ukrainian classics whose works were easiest to fit into the ideas of Marxism-Leninism were opened. These museums were, for instance, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky Literary Memorial Museum-Reserve in Chernihiv (1934) and the Panas Myrnyi Literary Memorial Museum in Poltava (1940). In the Soviet Union, one could become a classic relatively quickly, so in the postwar years museums of writers who were somewhat loyal to the totalitarian regime were opened fast.
The Literary-Memorial Museum of Maksym Rylsky, located in a house on the picturesque slopes of Holosiiv district, was founded in 1968, three years after the poet’s death. The story is similar to the memorial museum of Volodymyr Sosiura, also opened in 1968 in Lysychansk, also three years after Sosiura’s death. Buildings were opened to honor the memory of Mykhailo Stelmakh, Hrytsko Boyko, Yuriy Yanovsky, or even more ardent singers of the regime, such as Oleksa Desniak and Oleksandr Korniichuk. No other figures were mentioned.
V. M. Sosiura Memorial Museum
Museums of Pushkin, Korolenko, Tsvetaeva and Villa Stirlitz
There is a notion of national literature. The national literature in the Soviet Union was to be literature in Russian, supplemented by “the literature of the peoples of the USSR.” In Ukraine, the number of museums dedicated to Russian writers was almost as high as the number dedicated to Ukrainian writers.
There was a museum of Konstantin Paustovsky in Odesa, a museum of poet Sergei Yesenin in a school in Kharkiv (which, by the way, was recently destroyed by Russians with a missile attack), two museums of Vladimir Korolenko in Poltava and Zhytomyr, and a memorial house-museum of Anton Chekhov in Sumy (the list is far from complete). In the Khmelnytsky region, a museum named after Anna Akhmatova was opened in 1989 in the village of Slobidka-Shelekhivska on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of her birth.
Chekhov’s house-museum in Sumy
Russian writers left the most museum traces in Crimea. These include the Marina and Anastasia Tsvetaevs Museum in Feodosia, Chekhov’s house in Yalta, Alexander Green’s memorial house-museum, the house of the Russian poet of Ukrainian origin and artist Maximilian Kornienko-Voloshin, Villa Stirlitz in Olyva village in honor of the most famous character-spy of the Russian writer Yulian Siemienov.
The expositions of these museums were filled with references to the close ties and warm friendships with the Russian elite, many of whom had frequently stayed in these houses in Crimea. Museums dedicated to Russian pre-revolutionary writers exuded an air of elitism, reflecting their connection to the country’s cultural and intellectual elite. In contrast, the museums of Ukrainian writers had a more provincial feel, largely due to their exhibits being heavily focused on rural objects.
From the “great deeds” of the revolutionary Korchagin to the museum of propaganda
Myths were created about authors who were purely Soviet writers and began their literary career only after the revolution in 1917. A striking example is the work and biography of Nikolai Ostrovsky, who wrote the “cult” Soviet novel “How Steel Was Tempered,” which poeticized the “exploits” of its character and the revolutionary Pavel Korchagin.
In 1973, Ukrainian director Mykola Mashchenko created and filmed a television series based on the novel “How Steel Was Tempered,” broadcast almost every year. In the 1970s, the construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (broad-gauge railway line) began, which was declared an “all-Union Komsomol construction project.”
Komsomol (organization for young people aged 14 to 28, designed primarily as a political organ for spreading Communist authority) members from all over the USSR were urged to go to build the mainline, citing the example of Pavlo Korchagin and other Komsomol members who were laying a narrow-gauge railroad in Boyarka near Kyiv in “extremely difficult conditions.” The Soviet government called on its citizens to perform heroic deeds, to make sacrifices, to fight till the end, and to work to exhaustion.
The Mykola Ostrovsky Museum, from the building itself to the elements of the exhibition, became the embodiment of the myth of the “Soviet heroic deed.” The museum gained fame throughout the Soviet Union and attracted many foreign tourists. The biography of Mykola Ostrovsky was an ideological construct polished by Soviet propagandists to create another idol for young people. This is exactly how the writer was showcased in the exhibition.
The former literary and memorial museum of Mykola Ostrovsky in Shepetivka. Now the Museum of Propaganda
It is clear that after Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, the artificially created excitement around the personality of Mykola Ostrovsky disappeared, and after the decommunization laws came into force in 2015, the Ostrovsky Museum was on the verge of closure. Ostrovsky was not only a Soviet political figure. His literary works “How Steel Was Tempered” and “Born of the Storm” present distorted images of the fighters for Ukrainian independence at the end of the second decade of the twentieth century, and discredit the Ukrainian liberation struggle.
Mikhail Bulgakov museum before the independence
The Mykola Ostrovsky Museum staff, after discussions with the professional community and the society, was able to offer a new concept. Today it is the Museum of Propaganda, which aims to reveal the mechanisms of propaganda. This concept seems to be promising, but, at the same time, requires considerable intellectual and financial resources, which, in the current situation, makes its implementation much slower.
Mikhail Bulgakov Literary and Memorial Museum in Kyiv is an interesting example. The city authorities signed a decree on its creation in 1989, and it was opened in 1993. The museum, located in the house where the future writer lived with his parents, brothers, and sisters, began functioning after Ukraine gained independence, and Kyiv residents supported its creation. Bulgakov was considered a writer who suffered from the Soviet regime because he was banned from reading by the population. Instead, the truth is he happily escaped repression, was never arrested, and died naturally of illness. His play “The Days of the Turbins” was one of Stalin’s favorites.
The museum’s exposition is dedicated to the Kyiv period of Bulgakov’s biography, which is a large part of his life. The Bulgakov family was a typical example of a family of Russian provincial intellectuals who moved from Russia to Kyiv. They were sincere supporters of the empire, promoting its ideas and values in the Russian colony. Kyiv for them was just one of the provinces of the vast Russian Empire. Mikhail Bulgakov strongly rejected the idea of restoring Ukrainian statehood, which he clearly reflected in his works.
In addition to the comfort of home and relationships in the Bulgakov family, the exposition presented the image of Kyiv that Bulgakov poeticized in his works. Bulgakov showed the Russified Kyiv of the early twentieth century, a special city, but one that cannot be thought outside the context of Russian culture.
However, the example of the Bulgakov family can be used to present the history of Ukraine during its time as part of the Russian Empire and during the turbulent 1917-1920s. The history of Ukraine during the Russian Empire clarifies a lot about the situation we are in now, both as a state and as a nation. This may become the main theme of a radically new museum exhibition, where visitors will look at Bulgakov’s literary works through the lens of Ukrainian history. It is worth adding that today the Bulgakov Museum seems to be gradually rethinking the meanings of its exposition.
History is written by the winners, and the ideologized museums of the USSR are a vivid example of this. They presented only the history that was acceptable and safe for the Soviet state, and which silenced and erased many facts, figures, historical and cultural phenomena. Ukrainian museums should not continue this practice. Instead, it is necessary to talk about acute, uncomfortable, ambiguous historical events, and to conduct an honest dialog with the visitor. Therefore, simply closing the museum will be a step towards forgetting, an action similar to the policy of Soviet ideologues and current Russian propagandists.
At the end of the day, museums that become propaganda megaphones differ only in the ideological orientation of the regimes they are supposed to serve, but they still produce propaganda myths and are unable to serve society and fulfill their true mission.
Authors: Anastasiia Cherednichenko, Oksana Khmeliovska
Translation: Iryna Saviuk
This article is a part of the special project ‘Erasure of a Word’ created in support of the exhibition ‘Antitext’. The project is implemented by the Chytomo media in cooperation with the Kharkiv Literary Museum