Ukraine's WWII History Museum awarded with "museum Oscar"
On May 10, a solemn ceremony was held in London (Great Britain) in honor of this year's winners of the international Museum and Heritage Awards competition, at which the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War was presented with a special jury award for the exhibition Ukraine – Crucifixion and exceptional professional sustainability in conditions of war.
This follows from a statement posted on the website of the Museum, the Ukrainian News agency reports.
On behalf of the team, the director-general of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, Yurii Savchuk, received the honorary award.
As earlier reported, the exhibition Ukraine – Crucifixion (curator – Yurii Savchuk, artist - Anton Lohov) was opened on May 8, 2022. During the year of the exhibition, it attracted the attention of the world media and the public and received a number of exhibition sequels, which were shown. Abroad: Battle for Ukraine (Riga, Latvia), Ukraine - Crucifixion. 365... (Tallinn, Estonia), and Ukraine. Crucifixion. Tribunal (New York, United States).
This year, the contest organizers received about 500 applications from various museums worldwide, 92 of which entered the final with 18 nominations. In the nomination International Exhibition of the Year, the short list of selected winners included: the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, Toronto Museum of History, National Council of Science Museums (India), Ward Museum Association (Denmark), and Alpine Museum (Switzerland).
According to the director of the Museum and Heritage Awards, Anna Preedy, "when the members of the jury got acquainted with the materials of the exhibition of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, Ukraine - Crucifixion, a unanimous decision was made to award the project and the Museum of War with the Special Jury Award. After all, what we saw is definitely beyond the competition and beyond our traditional evaluation criteria."
The international jury was particularly impressed by the exhibition preparation process, which began in the first months of the Russian Federation's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the fact that the artifacts were collected by the museum team in the de-occupied regions of Kyiv and Chernihiv immediately after their liberation.
According to Yurii Savchuk: "The Museum and Heritage Award is a manifestation of great support for the Museum and the Ukrainian state, and international attention provides an important sense of Ukraine's belonging to European civilization and a clear vision of its European future."
The International Museum and Heritage Awards was founded in 2002 and is known worldwide as the "museum Oscar." Over the years of her achievements, the prestigious award was received by: the British Museum (Great Britain) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (USA). The Museum and Heritage organization appeared in 1991 as a center for cooperation between museums, galleries, and the field of cultural heritage. The award ceremony is the main event of the annual Museum and Heritage Show. It traditionally presents the main innovations, current trends in exhibition design, and current topics for discussion in the field of museum affairs and cultural heritage.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, on the anniversary of Bucha's liberation, an exhibition of atrocities by Russians in Ukraine opened in New York.