A public interview with Anton Drobovych, head of the Institute of National Memory, as part of the VOICES exhibition of the Museum of Civilian Voices by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.
The Kyiv City History Museum hosted the VOICES exhibition, a multidimensional exhibition based on true stories of Ukrainians about the war collected by the Museum of Civilian Voices by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation . The museum collects and stores the world's largest collection of first-hand accounts of the war in Ukraine - more than 120,000 stories.
As part of the exhibition, a public interview with Anton Drobovych, a Ukrainian public and state figure, an expert in communications, education and culture, and the head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, took place.
Anton Drobovych is a doctor of philosophy and a lawyer. In December 2019, he was appointed by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to the position of Head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory. He is the author of more than 50 scientific publications, as well as five educational courses and programmes in philosophy, cultural studies and cultural history. He has published a number of expert materials on social development, education and culture for leading Ukrainian media.
Public interviews as part of the VOICES exhibition opened a series of cultural events by the Museum of Civilian Voices by Rinat Akhmetov Foundation aimed at preserving the memory of the war.
The conversations are moderated by Anastasiia Platonova, a cultural critic, cultural analyst and curator of this series of events.
Anastasiia Platonova: I would like to start with a reality check: with what the state, as one of the key actors in the field of memory, came to point zero, before February 24, 2022, before the start of the full-scale invasion, because what happens after that in this field is another story, which we will talk about later.
Anton Drobovych: I would expand the scope a little bit. The point is that in order to understand the state of memory politics in Ukraine before the full-scale invasion, it would be more honest to talk about the 30 years of independence in general.
Let's start with the most basic. What is the policy of memory, if we talk about the state as an actor? It is the deliberate actions of the state aimed at making the community remember some things more intensely than others, in the simplest sense. The processes of forgetting are also absolutely normal for any memory, because collective memory always includes both remembering and forgetting.
In healthy democracies that value human beings, lives and rights of citizens, the state highlights various aspects, not only how heroic and perfect we are, but also where we have made mistakes and had problems. This is necessary for our awareness of our own identity, our national identity, to be healthy. Accordingly, the state provides grants not only to those who glorify it by telling about the infallible past, but also to those who point out mistakes, war crimes, conflicts with neighbours, etc. Some form of memory policy exists in all countries of the world. Some countries have special institutions that deal exclusively with this issue, while others do not. But there is a nuance here.
For Eastern Europe - Poland, the Baltic States, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic - there is a special feature that distinguishes their memory policies. This is the policy of restoring and preserving national memory. Why is this so important? Because all of these countries were once part of a communist-totalitarian regime, and even earlier, of empires. Empires in which there was a "main" imperial people, and a totalitarian regime that grew into a neo-imperial project. They sought to weaken the national memories of different communities in order to erase them. This was intended to reduce the level of identity of these peoples and make it easier to assimilate them into their states.
Therefore, for these countries, the question of memory policy is not only about its existence, but also about its restoration and preservation. Totalitarian regimes and empires destroyed archives, killed those who could pass on stories, banned memoirs, and removed books from libraries - all in order to erase the memory of the past. This led to absurd situations where a family whose members died during the Holodomor could lose their history. For example, a child from such a family could be rescued and sent to an orphanage in Kharkiv or Kyiv, where he or she grew up, but could eventually become a supporter of the "sovok", despite the fact that the regime caused his or her family great pain.
In order to prevent such paradoxical situations, countries that have emerged from totalitarian rule create special institutions that are tasked with restoring national memory. They search for archival data, help people find information about their missing relatives, and restore the continuum of memory.
Ukraine, having become an independent state in the 1990s, joined these free, democratic countries with the same task, but failed to fully fulfil it. In the 1990s and 2000s, we did not have an effective memory policy in the context of restoration and preservation. Only civil society and the academic community, including universities, were able to partially save the situation.
Although these people, for example, professors, sometimes had nothing to buy food with, they still continued to research repression, raise these issues, and create mechanisms for rehabilitation. Those activists who were part of the People's Movement, for example, did not focus exclusively on political struggle and gaining positions. They were focused on human rights protection and restoration of justice. We owe it to these people that in the 90s and 2000s there was at least something in this area.
Only Viktor Yushchenko dared to take an important step in the issues of national memory and its restoration at a high political level. Despite his shortcomings, he was obsessed with the idea of restoring justice for the Holodomor as genocide. He began to raise broader issues related to the assessment of the totalitarian regime. During the time of Yushchenko, our Institute became his key project, the Holodomor Museum was created, and the printing of books of remembrance began. It became clear that this was an extremely important issue, and we had been ignoring this area for almost 20 years. However, this realisation was short-lived. Under the rule of Dmytro Tabachnyk and Viktor Yanukovych, these issues were not completely closed, as it was no longer possible to cancel them, but they were marginalised, downgraded and relegated to the periphery.
The situation changed after the Revolution of Dignity in 2014, when we realised that memory was being used against us as a weapon, influencing the mass consciousness. Then the status of the Institute as an executive body was restored. The state recognised the importance of this issue, began to create memorial institutions and support them, although not enough.
We also began to rethink the experience of the Second World War, changed its name from the Great Patriotic War, because it was an incorrect ideological construct. For the first time, people started asking how we perceive this war, how we perceive the war in Afghanistan. Who are we there - accomplices of the interventionists or victims of the regime?
This discourse began after the Revolution of Dignity and was reinforced by Russian aggression. The Russian invasion showed that they are working in this area - they forbid talking about human rights, researching their own history, justifying the communist totalitarian regime, rehabilitating Stalin and Stalinist practices. We saw this in 2014 and began to counteract it more actively, culminating in 2022 and February 24, after which it became clear that we would have to act even faster. But this is another story...
Anastasiia Platonova: Can we talk about any fundamentally new or different, differently articulated national policies of memory that began to emerge or that have changed after February 24? Or can we say that the strategic approaches to memorialisation that we are now forced to implement here and now, while the war is still ongoing, are something new?
Anton Drobovych: There is a significant gap between what experts, specialists, and civil society feel and what is actually implemented as state policy at the level of parliament and the president. And the criteria for this gap are very simple. You may find it strange that I, a civil servant, am saying this, but it is true. I am tired of hearing stories about how important all this is, but at the same time we are cutting spending on activities in this area, which they say is extremely important. This has always been the case, since the days of Kuchma. Culture, education, the whole "soft architecture", which includes the policy of memory and the memorial sphere, are perhaps the most important for creating an ecosystem where the state should play the role of a moderator, a responsible adult, sometimes even a provocateur who raises important issues. Some issues can only be raised by the state, because an individual who tries to do so will simply be destroyed - by haters, wounded people, etc.
This ecosystem should bring together top initiatives, foundations, NGOs, academic institutions and the state to work together on very sensitive issues that can both hurt and empower us. However, very often these issues are not perceived by state actors as important, integral, or strategically linked to the security factor. Although now, after 2022, there is much more talk about this, as if there is some kind of awareness. But I emphasise: I do not believe in any awareness if it is not supported by government decisions, and most importantly, by public finances.
Anastasiia Platonova: You said that the function of the state, as one of the key and integral actors of memory, should be a moderator, a bridge between different actors of memory. How is this happening now? Especially after February 24.
Anton Drobovych: It seems to me that somewhere after the Revolution of Dignity, the state authorities began to better understand their place. They realised that they could no longer act like a dictator or a tyrant, because society no longer accepts such methods. It was a kind of healing effect for the entire system. I'm not saying that we have overcome all the problems, but there is an important point that often falls out of the discussion: we have a problem with the perception of the state as our own.
What I always try to remind people is that the state is you and me. These are the people who decided to leave business and go to work for the government, or those who gave up a successful political career to head a museum, or those who raised their hand in the community and said: "I will be the head of the village council." This is power. This is our neighbour or fellow residents who have taken responsibility for the common good. And our trouble is that after decades of Soviet rule and centuries of imperial power, we still do not recognise power as a part of us.
Anastasiia Platonova: We often talk about the state machine as if it were them, about the state as if it were someone else.
Anton Drobovich: This is not surprising, because the governor-general was sent to you from Moscow or St Petersburg. He was a man who solved his own problems, and the local elite negotiated with him on their own terms, without interfering in his affairs. This always leads to a division between "us and them", the government and society. This is what we need to overcome, because if we do not appropriate this state, if we do not recognise it as our own, we will continue to reproduce these problems. All these stories about military recruitment centers, about how "the authorities have to do something first, and then I will do it" - this all comes from there, this is a generic trauma that is centuries old. We need to overcome this and understand that we are also responsible for our country. This is the only way we can change the situation.
After 2014, we became more confident and began to put forward more demands on the authorities. The number of people who decided to run for office increased, and although not all of them passed the test, the system as a whole became healthier. This also applies to the system of national memory. Dialogue with the civil society sector has also strengthened, not least because of new structures such as the Institute of National Memory and the new tasks they have taken on. This indicates some progress in the interaction between the state and society.
The so-called decommunisation laws were adopted. Among them is the law on access to archives, which allows each of us to get acquainted with the old KGB archives, to find out what happened to our great-grandparents, who shot them and why. Also, the Law on the Perpetuation of the Victory over Nazism in World War II was passed, which finally named the war as it should be and introduced certain markers. Then there was the law on decommunisation and condemnation of the communist and Nazi totalitarian regimes. Until then, we actually had no relevant memory policy. The condemnation of Nazism at the state level was made only in 2015.
Society became more involved in these processes, and the topic was discussed more widely. And then the realities of the war came to the scene: coffins from the frontline, which changed the situation significantly. Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk residents were among the first to feel the seriousness of this part. This showed that national memory and the politics of memory are no less important than the economy or security.
It turned out that Russians are primarily concerned with "soft" things: education, the language of education, culture, museums, and content. And a synergy is beginning to emerge. Authorities, NGOs, academic institutions, and those people who were the first to feel what all this was leading to began to mobilise, create memorials, focus on preserving the memory of the Revolution of Dignity, etc. It was only after 2022 that a deeper awareness took place, but even now the state machine is working with certain delays.
Anastasiia Platonova: Where do you see new connections between different actors of memory that are more or less effective in addressing the key challenges we are currently facing, and what are these challenges?
Anton Drobovych: There are many challenges, but I will highlight three that resonate with me the most and, in my opinion, are the most urgent. First, it is the creation of a normal, living ecosystem of memory. According to the law, the Ministry of Culture and our Institute are responsible for national memory. They formulate the policy, and we implement it. But there are certain nuances. For example, when I took office, it turned out that only one person in the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy was formulating policy. Those experts who could have developed and implemented it were concentrating on where these ideas were to be implemented. Obviously, this led to a situation where we formed ideas, proposed them, and then they simply approved them. The same situation was with the parliament. For example, the law on decolonisation adopted in 2023. We worked on it for two years, systematically carrying out activities aimed at forming an understanding of what the colonial discourse is, what the empire is. We created an appropriate vocabulary and formed a community. In 2023, it became clear that the time had come, as communities began to demolish Pushkin monuments on their own. This was happening completely uncontrollably. At some point, we realised that we needed to give recommendations, otherwise everything would be demolished. For the first time, the Institute took the position of not telling anyone what to do, which is not in line with the requirements, but rather: "Slow down, friends, let's follow the procedure...".
At some point, we actually occupied this niche, and what did we do first? We turned to experts, invited professors. However, the existing architecture of government decisions did not provide for this. This became possible only because we had people in key positions who understood how everything should be organised properly. To conclude this first challenge regarding the ecosystem and connections, it should be noted that for the system to function properly, we need to reorganise it, or give our Institute a special status so that we can both formulate and implement policy as it happens in practice. Or we need to strengthen the unit in the Ministry of Culture responsible for policy-making, involving state experts in this process. If we can create and consolidate this ecosystem at the state level, it will become more stable and protected from various challenges.
Anything can happen tomorrow - a collapse, a change of personnel, the death of several key people due to missile strikes, or they simply go into business. Those few people who are doing all this work now may leave their positions, and then the whole system will hang for six months, and then the lottery will begin: what to do and who will do it? Therefore, it is necessary to fix this ecosystem to prevent such a scenario.
The second challenge is directly related to the war. There is an incredibly large demand for memorialisation, especially in the regions, which is simply amazing. For example, mothers come to us and say: "Many people died in the war in our village or town, and we want to set up a temporary memorial. How can we do it so that it is not made of welded Soviet school chairs, so that we are not ashamed?"
On the one hand, people cannot help but memorialise - they feel an inner need to do so immediately. I would like to emphasise an observation that was a bit of a revelation for me: it is rare for a society during such a large-scale war to memorialise at the same time as the war itself. This is almost unprecedented. It is difficult to find examples of someone building memorials during the Second World War right during the fighting. It seems nonsensical, but we are building it.
Anastasiia Platonova: Well, the world was different, but let's say that in modern history, during modern wars, this is not typically the case now, as it is in Ukraine.
Anton Drobovych: It should be noted that a totalitarian regime prevailed at the time, and spontaneous memorialisation was effectively banned. For example, people were persecuted for attempts to spontaneously memorialise Babyn Yar, and they could be arrested and interrogated by the KGB. But I want to draw attention to something else. During the Second World War, the intensity of fighting in certain regions was similar to what we are experiencing now. And now that we have liberated the Kyiv region, memorials are already appearing. A little over a year has passed, and look at how active this process is.
Anastasiia Platonova: Something started to happen right away. My guess is that this is, firstly, our way of living, and secondly, that society has a certain feeling in public places that this is largely about a way of rooting, experiencing, being, and it is about identity.
Anton Drobovych: We all understand that this is a very vulnerable thing. Missiles are flying tonight. Who among you is not aware of this? This is our specific feature. We are fighting a hot, large, very complex war and we are already memorialising it now. Why is this - psychologically, anthropologically, psychologically, socially? This is a very complicated question. I state that we are doing it. And we should pay tribute to all of us, because this is a feat. Museum workers, scholars, thinkers, historians, and oral history researchers are breaking the methodology-what methodology? Distance.
Anastasiia Platonova: On the time distance with the event.
Anton Drobovych: And they memorialise it here and now. Why? Whether it's rooting, or a way to survive, or a sublimation of fear, grief, pain, hatred-I don't know, but the fact remains that this process is massive. Accordingly, the second major challenge is memorialisation during the war. And here, the voice of the state is extremely important, especially when mothers come forward and ask how to properly organise a memorial. There are cases when the majority of the dead are those who died during the fighting, and someone, for example, returned from the war and died in a car accident. The parents insist that he should also be on the ceiling because he was a war veteran. And no one in the community dares to take responsibility and say no.
There are certain memorial spaces where this issue is resolved simply: in the cemetery, in the sector of military burials - no problem. If a person was a soldier and a participant in hostilities, they have the right to be remembered. But a stele in the city centre, where the dead are commemorated specifically during hostilities, is a different space.
In 2015, our institute created recommendations for the organisation of military burial sectors. We followed the logic of first arranging these sectors at all cemeteries in Ukraine. However, almost no one has created them in accordance with our recommendations, due to the difficulty of dialogue with communities. The Kherson region is an exception - one of the most beautiful cemeteries has been created there, which is still considered a reference. The second level is the national military memorial cemetery, which is beginning to be implemented, although we introduced the law on it back in 2020. The third level is the national pantheon, a symbolic place of remembrance in the city centre.
When it comes to the standardisation of military graves, we recommend that local governments make all graves the same in terms of design. However, about 90 per cent of communities have not been able to implement this. One of the heads of local self-government said: "How can I do this? A mother who lost her only son came to me and said she wanted to put up a monument to him the way she remembers him - sitting on a bench, playing the guitar in a tracksuit. How can I tell her no? I don't have the authority to say no."
And then a problem arises. Monuments are erected, and each one looks different. Some communities have the funds, others do not, and an imbalance arises. Over time, communities realise that it looks abnormal, but they created it themselves. Then they turn to experts to find a solution. They realise that only a few people have the moral strength, authority and trust of the community to address such a sensitive issue and be heard by everyone.
Anastasiia Platonova: What should we do about the lack of quality experts? Perhaps some kind of interaction between a state institution like the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory and the expert field?
Anton Drobovych: The short answer is that we need to increase the number of these experts, increase the number of related experts, disseminate this expertise, inspire local governments, send their students to a memory programme. It doesn't have to be from scratch: they can be, for example, graduates of history departments. It is important that these programmes are as environmentally friendly and transparent as possible. There are also so-called research programmes in universities and academic institutions that need to be strengthened to study these issues. This will help strengthen the ecosystem of national memory. I can authoritatively state that journalists, cultural critics, historians, philosophers, religious scholars, all these people can work with these subtle meanings, and this can be strengthened by art historians and museum workers.
Real objects, such as a war memorial cemetery, play an important role. Such objects must appear so that we can confidently say that we have a national memory policy. We will believe in this policy when high-quality, strong projects appear. For example, projects like the Museum of Civilian Voices of Rinat Akhmetov Foundation or the Voices exhibition by the same Museum, which demonstrate the importance of this topic for many people, including those in business. This is great, but the state must also play its part. It is necessary to finally build the Museum of the Revolution of Dignity and complete the construction of the Holodomor Museum.
The problem of infrastructure projects shows that we ourselves do not fully believe in the importance of this cause until we see its material embodiment. We are talking about a museum that commemorates the memory of more than 4.5 million people who were killed in a horrific way during the Holodomor, but we have not yet been able to properly memorialise this tragedy. Sites such as the war memorial cemetery are also extremely important. This cemetery should become our symbol, similar to Arlington, but even better.
Only after we see these material embodiments of the policy of national memory will we understand that this is not just another monument, but a place where all these people were thought of, a place of rest, a place of honour for people, thanks to which not only relatives and friends, but everyone understands that these are indeed the heroes and heroines who defended us. If we don't see these results, we will remain in a state of doubt, even if we talk about it with all sincerity.
Anastasiia Platonova: And the third point you wanted to touch on.
Anton Drobovych: This point is specific but extremely important, it concerns transitional justice. The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union has published a study that focuses on how we treat people in the temporarily occupied territories, passport issuance in these territories, and much more. At the same time, the number of cases opened for war crimes was announced - about 130,000. In addition, there is a huge number of cases of collaboration, which is already significant, and we can expect even more after the war is over. We all understand that this number will only grow.
A serious problem arises. Instead of bringing to justice for collaboration those who actually made political decisions, people who were involved in, for example, water supply or street maintenance are often prosecuted. Lawyers have already expressed their dissatisfaction with this. So the question arises: how do we stitch our society back together?
Suppose that tomorrow we destroy Russia and regain effective control over the temporarily occupied territories. What will happen next? Even the current number of cases pending with the prosecutor's office and the police is too much for our judicial system to handle. We are now talking about 130,000 cases, and these are only the ones that are already available. And there are other cases that no one is cancelling, and their number could rise to 500,000. This creates a huge burden on our judicial system. Each case involves questioning witnesses, collecting evidence, investigation, court hearings, three instances of appeal, and then a possible appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. This is an incredibly complex and lengthy process, which our system will find difficult to sustain.
We are promised justice for everyone, but this is unrealistic in full. Therefore, we need transitional justice. This is another challenge in times of war. There is already a demand to determine responsibility, and we need to clearly define the rules. We need to agree on what actions will be criminal, what actions will be administrative, and what actions will be reputational: no one will shake hands with a person, and they will not be elected anywhere, because we as a community have agreed that such actions are unacceptable. It is important to resolve this now.
And it turns out that most of these components, in addition to criminal punishment, belong to the sphere of memory. No national system in the world has ever achieved justice solely through criminal means. Memory, as it turns out, remains one of the few realistic ways to achieve justice after war. It is a field where we can achieve justice, and this must be done through the awareness and preservation of the memory of the events that took place.
Anastasiia Platonova: How do we discuss these basic principles of transitional justice with society?
Anton Drobovych: This is a really specific and complex topic, a rare and difficult area of law. But that is why we should not be afraid to bring it up for discussion. Firstly, it is important to make it a subject of broad discussion, and secondly, we need to go beyond a purely legal discussion. We must honestly admit that justice for all will only be possible when we start talking beyond the criminal justice system.
For example, what should be done with a teacher who in Crimea tyrannised children for teaching them the "wrong" history? What will be her responsibility? And what is the responsibility of the principal of the school where this teacher works, or the district that allowed this atmosphere to be created? What should we do with the officials in the Crimean Ministry of Education? We need to discuss these issues now, hold public discussions, make TV series, write books, study examples from history, such as denazification in Germany. This is a difficult and unpopular discourse, but it is necessary. If we start thinking about transitional justice only after the victory, people will not trust this system. They will say that it was put together in a hurry and dishonestly.
We need to work out these issues now, make them clear and accessible to everyone, and then convey this understanding to our citizens in the temporarily occupied territories. They need to know that when justice and legality come, they will be judged by clear criteria.
It is important to understand that this field is not limited to criminal law. It also includes journalism, history, cultural studies, communication and, most importantly, a common understanding of right and wrong. The memory of what happened should become part of the national memory. For example, in the same Crimean school where the teacher tortured children with Putin's propaganda, her name should remain in the community's memory. Perhaps the only form of justice for her will be the publication of testimonies about her actions in newspapers, in the Museum of Civilian Voices or in the archive of oral histories of the Institute of National Memory.
We have to raise these issues now, because otherwise we will not be able to meet the expectations of society. The Nuremberg Tribunal affected only a small group of people, not all criminals. And we don't have enough judges, prosecutors, and lawyers to cover everyone. That is why memory is of particular importance as a way to ensure justice.
We are now unique in the world in that we are engaged in memorialisation during the war, discussing transitional justice during the war, holding exhibitions during the war, and all these people are still alive! This is a new approach to commemoration. It's not a certainty that it will work, but we have a great chance. We are alive and continue to fight, so we must use every opportunity to ensure that our memory and justice find their place in the future.
