One of Ukraine’s leading art and design academies was severely damaged by a Russian missile attack in Kiev on Monday, in the latest blow to Ukraine’s cultural heritage after a full-scale invasion by Russia in 2022.
The Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine said in a statement “As a result of falling fragments of a missile launched by the Russian Federation, the center of the building of the Kyiv State Institute of Applied and Decorative and Applied Arts and Design named after Mykhailo Boichuk was destroyed.” In addition, “the premises of the departments and the institution’s auditorium were heavily damaged.”
Academy students, teachers and graduates he has posted dramatic images of sculptures, mosaics, paintings and icons on social media.
Academy head Helen Osadcha said in a Facebook post that the strike was at 10:30 in the morning, when classes were in session. He said a teacher’s life was saved when an air raid siren led him to move away from a window before the explosion. All the works of the invited exhibition competitions Woman in the Flames of Warwhich were being held in the academy’s conference room, were destroyed, Osadcha wrote.
“The enemy is trying to destroy Ukraine as a nation, erase our identity, destroy cultural monuments… [it] tries to rewrite our history and appropriate Ukraine’s spiritual and cultural assets,” he wrote.
“We were saved by a miracle [in] that we managed to fall to the ground in time, wrote another teacher, Myroslav Vayda.
“This was my high school!!!”, wrote Elena Fateeva, a former student who runs an international design studio based in Kiev. “Russia cannot talk about art when it destroys theaters, museums and institutions with rockets. Today, Russia destroyed one of Ukraine’s art universities. Boichuk Academy is an educational institution with a long history of training the best artists, designers and craftsmen.
Another graduate, Mykola Kovalenko, published a provocative graphic work that emphasizes the power of art in times of conflict. The poster represents A missile with the white, blue and red flag of Russia piercing the yellow and blue pencil of the Ukrainian flag. In the upper corner are the words “Ukraine will win”.
Boichuk, after whom the academy is named, was a leading artist of Ukrainian modernism. He was executed in 1937, when Ukrainian cultural workers were targeted during Stalin’s Great Terror. Since the Russian invasion two years ago, Boichuk’s work has received increased attention in Europe and the US.
Earlier this month Unesco published an updated list There are 346 cultural sites damaged or destroyed across Ukraine since February 24, 2022, when the full-scale invasion began.
