Ukrainian relics await their return home
December 11 marked the closing day of the first stage of the project, To Know the Past for the Sake of the Future, courtesy of the Intellectual Development Fund, Ukraine — XXI Century. The ceremony at the Kyiv National Museum of Ukrainian History was attended by prominent politicians, scholars, and artists. As part of this stage, the Fund arranged for the regalia and personal belongings of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, in part, his gonfalon, mace, saber, whip, two goblets, and chalice, to be brought to Ukraine and showcased at a number of museums. The hetman’s hat, an exhibit of the National History Museum, was the only exhibited relic which is permanently on display in Ukraine. Although the fate of the hat, a gift of Varvara Mykolayivna, a famous Ukrainian donor from the hetman clan of the Khanenkos, to the Kyiv Arts and Industry Museum named for Emperor Nikolai II, was by no means an easy one. It was removed to Germany during World War II only to reappear at the Belarus War History Museum in restitution for Nazi wartime theft. And only in 1954 the relic returned to Ukraine as a gift from the Belarus people dedicated to the 350th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Council.
In the nine months, the exhibition traveled to museums in Kyiv, Chyhyryn, Lviv, and Dnipropetrovsk, which, to quote Fund Chairman Bohdan Hubsky, was a very symbolic itinerary. The organizers focused their attention on the centers of formation of Ukrainian statehood. The project involved six museums in four European countries, namely three Polish museums and one museum in Sweden, Russia, and Ukraine each. This circumstance deserves special mention. Now that most of Ukraine’s cultural treasures are in collections of museums the world over, international cooperation and exchanges between museums often are the only means of making them available to Ukrainians. However, according to the Fund, the hetman’s regalia will most likely return to stay in Ukraine, which is the subject of ongoing negotiations with the museums. The more so that, according to Mr. Hubsky, these exhibits are not half as precious for these museums as they are for Ukraine. For instance, the insurance value of the major relic, the hetman’s gonfalon on display at the Stockholm Military Museum, is a mere $20,000, an arguably negligible amount for Ukraine in contrast to interest aroused by the temporary stay of the hetman’s belongings in Ukraine. It is estimated that some 160,000 Ukrainians went to see the exhibition. According to curators of museums displaying the regalia, visitors would often kneel before them.
Incidentally, this is not the only project implemented under the aegis of the Intellectual Development Fund managed by Bohdan Hubsky. Unfortunately, similar acts of goodwill are more the exception than the rule. There are countless openings in the sphere of Ukrainian sponsorship.
