Impermanent Collection: Documenting Ukrainian Museums

More than 1,000 days into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, resistance to the war still buzzes across Dartmouth. Spearheading these efforts are two Ukrainian professors, Victoria Somoff, associate professor in the recently renamed East European, Eurasian, and Russian Studies department, and Lada Kolomiyets, visiting professor, at Dartmouth.

Last year, in addition to their regular course load, the two introduced a Ukrainian language sequence, a Dartmouth first. To Victoria and Lada, teaching the language is an act of resistance. Lada notes the importance of the language "in the context of the information war," so that students can obtain "direct and comprehensive access to information about Ukraine and from Ukraine." Victoria notes the more symbolic reasons for learning Ukrainian.

Now a year into this program, the pair continue to look for new interest in the language track. Enter Robbie Abel '24, the Jones Memorial Digital Media Fellow at Dartmouth Libraries, and a recent student of Lada's class Ukrainian Dreams After Communism. When Robbie learned of the new language program, he offered to create video trailers to promote the classes to new students. This outreach sparked a growing collaboration between the classes and Dartmouth Libraries, culminating in an exhibition at the Hood Museum.

Titled, "Impermanent Collection: Ukraine's Museums under Attack," this exhibition sought to document Russia's destruction of Ukrainian museums and cultural sites, with Dartmouth students researching and curating the work. Students of both UKRA 11: Intensive Ukrainian and UKRA 27: Intermediate Ukrainian were paired with their peers at Ternopil Technical University, supervised by Professor Lesia Nazarevych, throughout the term. This partnership meant Dartmouth students could practice their Ukrainian language conversation skills; and, in turn, the Ukrainian students helped facilitate research on the damaged museums, interviews with museum curators based in Ukraine, and aid in translations. 

Link to full article in Dartmouth Libraries here.