KuFC team at the Summer Institute “Witnessing the War on Ukraine"
Members of our team are actively involved in organising the Institute and shaping the conversations around testimony, memory, and cultural heritage.
Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, Director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and the Huculak Chair in Ukrainian Culture and Ethnography, key organiser and speaker, spoke about oral history as a vital method of preserving wartime testimony. She also reflected on the role of oral historians in Ukraine as both witnesses and documentarians.
Maryna Chernyavska, Digital Archivist at the Archives and former Researcher and Archivist at the Kule Folklore Centre and the Bohdan Medwidsky Ukrainian Folklore Archives, discussed current risks and challenges of digital preservation, particularly of audiovisual archives, and highlighted the mutual benefits of collaboration between testimony collectors and archival institutions.
The Summer Institute is coordinated by Anna Olenenko, graduate student at the Kule Folklore Centre.
This event marks an important step in ensuring that the testimonies of those who have witnessed the war in Ukraine are collected, preserved, and transformed into enduring elements of Ukraine’s cultural heritage.