This book explores how societies deal with the effects of war on the historic environment. Written by historians, archaeologists, and conservation professionals, it offers a dramatic perspective on the war in Ukraine.
This book explores how societies deal with the effects of war on the historic environment. Written by historians, archaeologists, and conservation professionals, it offers a dramatic perspective on the war in Ukraine. It reveals the truth behind the Kremlin’s ‘just war’ narrative and touches on the complex relationship between war, society and the historic environment with examples of heritage conservation, archaeology and political expediency from Europe to Namibia.
Prompted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the first section ‘Frontline Ukraine’ examines the manipulation of history, the use of propaganda, and the decolonisation of Russian memorials in former Soviet states. It highlights how illegal archaeological excavations, looting and the removal of museum collections beginning from seizure of Crimea in 2014 until the present day have contributed to an increasingly implausible Russian narrative which attempts to represent an imperial land grab as a ‘just war’. In the second section ‘Aspects of War’, the authors provide a wider perspective, with chapters on the influence of film, the effect of war on conservation, forensic archaeology, the reconstruction of damaged or destroyed museums as well as the relationship between America and the Hague Convention.
Topical and lucid, this volume will be beneficial to students and researchers of history, archaeology, politics and international relations. The chapters in this book were originally published in The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice and are accompanied by an updated introduction and a new conclusion.
Introduction: War and the Historic Environment Part 1: Frontline Ukraine
1. The Fight for the Past: Contested Heritage and the Russian Invasion of
Ukraine
2. Empires of Lies? The Political Uses of Cultural Heritage in War
3.
Russia was Doomed to Expand [ its] Aggression Against Ukraine: Cultural
Property Criminals Responses to the Invasion and Occupation of the Donbas
Since 20th February 2014
4. Monumental Decisions: The Impact of the
Russo-Ukrainian War on Soviet War Memorials
5. Archaeological Monitoring in
War-Torn Ukraine Part 2: Aspects of War
6. A Reluctance Acceptance: the USA
and the Hague Convention of 1954
7. Heritage Under Fire: The Office of
Works and Historic Monuments in Wartime
8. Museums and Museumification in
Post-Conflict Contexts: Revisiting the Shaping of Architectural
Reconstruction Strategies
9. Lest We Forget: The Archaeology of Warfare,
Conservation, Interpretation, and Engagement in Hull and the East Riding of
Yorkshire
10. Empty Spaces, Buried Crimes: Post-Conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina
11. Mass Graves: The Forensic Investigation of the Deaths, Destruction and
Deletion of Communities and Their Heritage
12. Understanding Liminality and
Intangible Difficult Heritage through Film Conclusion
Michael Dawson is the Editor of The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice, lectures in the Department of Continuing Education, and is a member of the common room at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, UK. He is a former Heritage Consultant at RPS and Chair of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologist. He has published widely including the recent Heritage Under Pressure, an important collection of papers looking at threats and solutions to conservation issues in the historic environment.
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