The Sixtiers’ Movement Museum: an open and shut case?

On May 18, the International Museum Day, the Sixtiers Movement Museum, a branch of the phantom Kyiv History Museum, was formally opened by the head of the Kyiv City State Administration Oleksandr Popov in front of a dozen TV cameras and journalists, and half a hundred writers, painters, politicians, and public figures. The event took place at 33, Oles Honchar Street. The building is rented by the People’s Movement of Ukraine, and the rent expires this December. However, on that very day the museum was closed down, and all expositions and even shelves where removed. The most optimistic forecasts promise that Kyivites and guests of our capital will be only able to enjoy the spirit of the sixties at befitting quarters after Independence Day, August 24. The pompous opening of the Sixtiers Movement Museum by Popov was in fact an opening of the hastily redecorated premises of the future museum.

In an only exhibition room, the museum staff let the first visitors see the sixtiers’ archive documents, works, and personal items. Due to lack of hanger grids, paintings and photographs were nailed right on the plasterboard walls.

“Today is a special day, because we are gathered here to commemorate the people who contributed to Ukraine’s modern history in no easy times. They aspired to enable this country to become independent, democratic, and modern. Therefore, I feel privileged to be opening the Sixtiers Movement Museum as a branch of the Kyiv History Museum. We are honored to be here together with the people who are the spirit of this museum, because it was them who stood up for the country’s national interests in the 1960s, which was a dangerous time for anything associated with the Ukrainian national idea,” said Popov at the opening.

Having done a hasty tour of the little exhibition room, the mayor disappeared, and the staff immediately began to dismantle the shelves and showcases, which had been brought over from the Kyiv History Museum just for one day, for the opening ceremony.

“All the items will be removed today, because the newly opened museum has no guards, burglar alarm, or barred windows,” said the upset director of the Sixtiers Movement Museum, political prisoner with a long record, Mykola PLAKHOTNIUK. “We cannot keep here our collection, which includes more than 20,000 items: materials, archive documents, over 600 paintings, manuscripts, samizdat publications, and the artists’ personal items. The museum is not equipped with showcases or shelves. We have more than 6,000 copies of works by the Sixtiers and about them, but we have nothing to display then on. Today, all these items are scattered all over Kyiv, in fact: at schools, churches, or other museums. We have been long requested to take them back.”

According to Plakhotniuk, the idea of the Museum, proposed as far back as in 1994 by Nadia Svitlychna, has in fact not been implemented until today. Ukraine’s former presidents Leonid Kravchuk, Leonid Kuchma, and Viktor Yushchenko merely shrugged it off with promises. None of them seemed to be interested in the Sixtiers’ movement, with its ideals of liberty, democracy, freedom, and statehood.

Thanks to the colossal effort of many ordinary people, MPs, NGO leaders, and under the pressure from the media the building of the future museum was opened in Kyiv on May 18. Curiously, Mayor Popov knew perfectly well that he was opening a building, not a museum. He called this event the first step on the way to a full-fledged museum, implying that on Independence Day it can be re-opened.