Advancing Interinstitutional Cooperation: Materials Collected within an International Project to Enrich the National Archival Fund of Ukraine

8 july 2026 year

Culture, Science

On 6 July 2026, Olha Vovk, Deputy Director of the Academician Petro Tronko Centre for Ukrainian Studies and Local History and Lecturer at the Department of Historiography, Source Studies and Archaeology, visited the Central State Scientific and Technical Archives of Ukraine. She submitted to the Archive Expert Review Commission ten interviews collected as part of the research project she leads, entitled “Ukrainian Heritage Protection Specialists under Conditions of Russian Military Aggression: Professional Experiences, Personal Stories, and Visions of the Future”.

The project was implemented with the support of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, IWM) as part of the "Documenting Ukraine" programme.

The oral history sources, supplemented by photographs, reveal both institutional and personal dimensions of efforts to preserve cultural heritage. Particular attention is paid to the activities of heritage protection specialists from the regions of Ukraine that have been or continue to be in proximity to the combat zone, including Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, the Dnipro region, and Kherson. The recorded memories and expert opinions of specialists constitute a significant source base for further research on the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The event took place within the framework of implementing the provisions of the recently signed cooperation agreement between V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University and the Central State Scientific and Technical Archives of Ukraine.