A Global Approach to Decolonizing Ukrainian Cultural Heritage

Abstract

A new partnership project aims to create a guide to decoloniality for use in Ukraine, the UK and globally. Decoloniality – a developing practice in the UK and elsewhere – is essential for the long-term protection of cultural heritage in Ukraine and other countries impacted by Russian colonial rule. By encouraging readers to question long-held assumptions about Russia’s role as a colonizing power, the guide will act as a tool for specialists and non-specialists struggling to accurately identify and describe cultural heritage from Eastern Europe. At the time of writing, planning for this pilot project is at an early stage, but the guide is envisaged as a much-needed step towards enhancing global perspectives on the rich cultural heritage of this often misunderstood and underrepresented region. This paper focuses on two key challenges we face in embarking on this one-year project: concepts of nationality in a region with historically shifting borders and issues surrounding language, terminology and transliteration.