Ukrainians have impressed the world, as well as themselves, with their extraordinary resilience and unbreakability during Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. This feature is also inherent in the Ukrainian language, which was not forgotten, did not dissolve, and did not disappear during centuries of oppression.
It is important to preserve the memory in order to understand the causes and consequences of actions, to explain how the past affects the present, and to gain experience. For centuries, the Russian Empire, the USSR, and now the Russian Federation have deliberately and consistently limited Ukrainian education, prevented the free development of Ukrainian culture, and instilled prejudices and stereotypes. Therefore, these areas now need special support in order to recover, develop to their full potential, and take their rightful place in the world’s diversity.
To illustrate the entire path of oppression down which the Ukrainian language went in the last 400 years, the Valency. Rethink NGO has created an interactive memorial consisting of a series of graphic boards placed in the centre of Kyiv, and a mobile application that connects them.
The memorial was implemented in October-November 2022 with the support of the Goethe-Institut Ukraine and the Kunsht magazine, and it still continues to develop. In particular, the creators of the project propose to investigate your own genealogy from the perspective of the language issue; it may bring you unexpected discoveries.
You can learn more about the project and its creators, as well as install the application with descriptions and routes on the website linguicide.in.ua.