City in the Suitcase: Saved (Family) Archives

During Russia's full-scale invasion, many cities and rural areas suffered great destruction. The cities of the east and south became special symbols of the brutality of the war, but also of resilience and resistance. Urban development - the material heritage - was nearly wiped out. However, the residents of the cities who managed to escape are still the sources of the living memory of their cities. Some managed to take their family photo albums with them, some took photos on their phones, and others recreate fragments of their former lives using their social media photos. These photos are a window into the past and a connection between people: family members, and members of the city community. Sometimes, the photos are the only memory of people who became victims of the war. And sometimes, they can also become the basis for postwar urban planning and reconstruction.

The Center for Urban History and the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore invite you to join the initiative to collect family photo archives to preserve and study the history of cities that faced urbicide: Sievierodonetsk, Mariupol, and Bakhmut. Your photographs are an important source of information about the past and tell unique stories, reflecting the traditions, rituals, and daily life of a certain time and place.

For us, different photos are valuable: family holidays, working and school days, neighborhood views, nature in cities, important buildings and one's home, childhood, and many others.

We are looking for:

• Family archives: we are willing to digitize old photos of your family for free.
• Modern family photos: we invite you to send us photos taken in recent years (also digital).
• Archives of local historians and organizations that do not have the capacity to digitize and preserve them.

If you would like to send your photos for scanning and archiving, please contact us by phone: +380953869645 or: [email protected] (Kateryna Filonova).

All collected and processed photographs will be archived and accessible on the website of the Urban Media Archive of the Center for Urban History for further use by researchers, artists, and interested individuals. Paper photographs and rights to digitized images remain in the hands of their owners. The Urban Media Archive stores only digitized images and provides external users with access to full-size files only with the consent of the owners.

You can find useful tips on how to preserve, view, and explore your family archives at the link .

Organizers: Center for Urban History and Mariupol Museum of Local Lore in cooperation with the University of St. Andrews and the National University "Ostroh Academy."

This project is made possible by a grant from Research England, implemented by the International Organization of Universities in the United Kingdom.

Credits

Cover Image: People with accordion on the street, Kramatorsk // Kateryna Filonova Collection  // Urban Media Archive of the Center for Urban History