Valentyna Bochkovska: Saving cultural Heritage: Museum of Book and Printing of Ukraine (Kyiv) in wartime

Valentyna Bochkovska has been director of the Museum of Book and Printing of Ukraine in Kyiv since 2008. She has a PhD in History and was a Fulbright scholar (Chicago, 2016/2017), and is a curator of art projects, exhibitions, literature festivals, as well as a researcher and a museum expert, co-author and book editor. Valentyna Bochkovska and her colleagues in Ukraine have met face to face with the terrible damage and losses not only of Ukrainian lives but Cultural Heritage as well. As of 23 January 2023, UNESCO has verified damage to 236 sites since 24 February 2022 – 105 religious sites, 18 museums, 83 buildings of historical and/or artistic interest, 19 monuments, and 11 libraries.

The lecture «Saving cultural Heritage: Museum of Book and Printing of Ukraine (Kyiv) in wartime» is devoted to this unique institution, which is housed in a former building of the Kyiv Cave Monastery Press. It was built in the early 17th century. Kyiv Cave Monastery Press was the first printing house in the whole of Central and Eastern Ukraine and was in operation continuously for over 300 years. The Museum collection contains 58 000 exhibits – manuscripts, 800 old printed books and engravings from the 16^th to 18^th centuries, and rare books from the 19^th century, 13 000 graphic works, printing presses, first editions of 19th- and 20th-century Ukrainian books and other publications, bookplates, and paintings. How can we protect it, what actions should be prioritised and what has been done since the beginning of the War? In this lecture Valentyna Bochkova raises these questions as well as the question of combining the efforts of Ukrainians and the world community in preserving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage.

Valentyna Bochkovska, PhD, is a historian who has been director of the Museum of Book and Printing of Ukraine since 2008. She is curator of art projects, exhibitions, literature festivals, co-author of the books Kataloh vydanʹ Pochaïvsʹkoho ta Univsʹkoho monastyriv XVIII-XX st.: z kolekt︠s︡iĭ Muzei︠u︡ knyhy i drukarstva Ukraïny (2008), Zibranni︠a︡ ukraïnsʹkykh starodrukiv XVI-XVIII stolitti︠a︡ (2012) - http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n2009-79305/. She compiled the Facsimile Edition of the book Historiae biblicae Veteris et Novi Testamenti (Augsburg, 1748 – Kiev, 2015). 

She was a participant in the International Visitor Leadership Program “The Role of Museums in Defining National Identity” (USA, 2009), the AAM International Conference (USA, 2017), the AAM International Virtual Conference in San Francisco 2020. She was Fulbright Scholar 2016-2017 (Chicago-Stamford) with the project “American collections of Antique Ukrainian Books XVI-XVIII c.”, and was curator of the exhibition “Ukraine on the Maps of the World XVI-XX c.” (June-July 2017). She was Visiting Scholar in Bologna University September 2022- February 2023.