REHERIT 2.0: Common Responsibility for Shared Heritage

The events of the 20th century – two World Wars and radical political ideologies, ranging from Nazism to Communism – meant massive destruction and loss for the inhabitants of the present-day territory of Ukraine. The lives of communities and residents were drastically disrupted or annihilated. Buildings that were once synagogues and cultural centers, homes that lost their inhabitants, cemeteries that endured even if neglected are now the sites of testimony and remembrance of mass violence. These spaces tell stories and warn of the consequences of prejudice, discrimination, and hate speech.

The unexplored and unreflected pages of the past keep coming back to us, prompting new discussions about the dangers of hierarchization of experiences, construction of a monopoly on history, marginalization and dividing the society on "our own" and "others," "better" and "worse" citizens based on various characteristics. The experiences of the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine resonate deeply with the experiences of those who lived but did not survive the war and occupation in the past. In the new realities, how does the present, in its approach to the past, allow us to rethink experience from a historical perspective? Moreover, how can we respond to the current threats and solidarize society around a shared heritage? How can cultural heritage become a tool for finding a common language within a community?

The teams of the Center for Urban History and the Centre for Regional Development of the PPV Economic Development Agency will work together on these issues in the project "REHERIT 2.0: Common Responsibility for Shared Heritage" with the financial support of the European Union.

The project “REHERIT 2.0: Common Responsibility for Shared Heritage” (2024-2027) strengthens the vision of the multicultural heritage of Ukrainian cities and towns as a common heritage that revitalizes cultural development, promotes critical thinking and overcomes discrimination, and stimulates local socio-economic potential, in particular through increased tourism, investment, and support for cultural businesses. The project consists of interconnected components based on the participatory approach:

• educational program and artistic intervention around the topic of multicultural heritage of cities;  
• preservation, digitization, and creation of digital collections of historical sources (visual and oral history) to promote a dialogue on archiving as a cultural practice and common heritage; 
• development and piloting new approaches to managing multicultural heritage in Rivne, Medzhybizh, Uman; 
• training program and creation of an expert network to develop the competencies of specialists in the field of heritage and cultural management;
• granting program to support development initiatives in communities working with the multicultural past.

To a large extent, "REHERIT 2.0" will be a continuation of the project that ran in 2018-2021 and was implemented by the Lviv City Council's Heritage Preservation Office, the Center for Urban History, the Urban Space Lab, and the Uman City Counci's Department of Culture.

More information can be found at reherit.org.ua. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us at reherit@lvivcenter.org. 

PROJECT PARTNERS

• Center for Urban History
• Centre for Regional Development of the PPV Economic Development Agency

TEAM from the Center for Urban History

• Sofia Dyak, project director
• Viktoria Panas, project curator 
• Maria Kravchenko, project coordinator
• Yelyzaveta Bobrova, communication manager
• Inna Zolotar, facilitator of the engagement component 
• Sofia Andrusyshyn, Oleksandr Dmytriev, logistics and technical support
• Maryana Mazurak, counselling 
• Yaryna Paniv, Tetyana Figel, financial support of the project

This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the partners of the "REHERIT 2.0" project and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union