Cultural heritage under the threat: new challenges and new opportunities for intercultural communications (the case of Borodyanka and Ivankiv in Ukraine)

Abstract

The article claims that the issue of cultural heritage as a component of the phenomenon of culture is at the center of social processes and the attention of active actors of these processes. Attention is drawn to one of the cardinal problems of this context — the preservation of cultural heritage in conditions of catastrophic threats, primarily environmental and military, in particular related to the challenges they generate and the impact they have on intercultural communications. It is analyzed the specific background of the situation with the artifacts of two small Ukrainian towns — Borodyanka and Ivankiv, whose cultural heritage twice fell into turbulent situations: during the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Russian aggression (full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022). Among this heritage, attention is drawn to the story of the rescue of the paintings of the naitivist artist Mariya Prymachenko and the Borodyanka’s cockerel (Borodyanskyi pivnyk) — efforts to preserve them provided an example of the conscious attitude of Ukrainians to the cultural heritage of their people and its role, and therefore Ukrainian culture in general, in intercultural communications. It is noted that the appearance of graffiti by the British street-artist Banksy on the walls of destroyed houses in Borodyanka became a sign of Ukrainians’ interest in the art of other nations and a kind of invitation to intercultural communications. Episodes of consolidation at the national and international levels aimed at preserving the cultural heritage of peoples and the development of intercultural communications and intercultural interaction are shown.