Dr. Kateryna Rietz-Rakul

Kateryna Rietz-Rakul is head of the foreign representative office of the Ukrainian Institute in Germany. She studied philology and holds a doctorate in contemporary literature. She works as an interpreter, translator, author and cultural manager in Berlin and is committed to international cooperation between creative people from Ukraine and other countries. 

The institute was founded in Kyiv in 2017 and is affiliated with the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the mission to strenghten Ukraine's international and domestic subjectivity through cultural diplomacy. Goals of the Ukrainian Institute are to improve understanding and recognition of Ukraine among international audience, empower Ukraine's civil society, academic and cultural community, secure the demand for professional interaction with Ukraine, and strengthen Ukraine's involvement in current global processes.

The Institute's first international location was opened in Berlin in March 2023. The institution uses a variety of formats to convey versatile knowledge and understanding about Ukraine. 

After the Russian attack in February 2022, the Ukrainian Institute gained further importance: it offers Ukrainian narratives about Ukraine and addresses current decolonization processes.

Spech: 

Ladies and gentlemen,  

Friends and colleagues,  

Шановні лауреатки,

 

As the director of a Ukrainian institute that came to Germany just under a year ago, I’d like to thank ifa for giving me the honour of welcoming the laureates here today. As a Ukrainian, I am happy and proud that our colleagues at the Ukraine 5 AM Coalition are receiving the award today. The Ukraine 5 AM Coalition is a coalition of human rights organizations that collects and documents war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The work they do is enormously important and requires a great deal of strength and integrity – so this award is very well deserved. Why am I speaking here today as a representative of the Ukrainian Institute in Germany, an organization that is primarily associated with culture and academia? I’m here today because my institute has strong historical ties with Ukrainian civil society. Along with several others, we are what is known as a post-Maidan institution, which is committed to maintaining high standards of monitoring through civil society. Two-thirds of our Board of Directors is made up of civil society actors. Many of my colleagues, including myself, were and are active in civil society.

Russia’s war against Ukraine – which has now been going on for 10 years – has clearly shown us that art and culture are inseparable. It is no coincidence that Raphal Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer who practised in my hometown of Lviv, described the destruction of tangible and intangible cultural heritage as cultural genocide. The UN adopted the Genocide Convention on 9th December 1948, but "political" groups and "cultural" genocide were removed from Lemkin's original definition after pressure from the USSR, France and the UK. But it’s obvious that a nation cannot survive without language and culture, whether it’s cuisine or fine art. In fact, not one generation of Ukrainian families has been spared from Russian colonization, Russification and oppression. And now the children who attended elementary school at the beginning of the war are going to the front.

The Russian invaders are burning Ukrainian books and banning the language. Thousands of museum exhibits have been taken to Russia from the occupied territories to join the artifacts that were transported from Ukraine to Russia during the Soviet occupation. Illegal excavations are also being carried out in the occupied areas, especially in Crimea. Thousands of museums and other cultural institutions have been partially or completely destroyed by targeted bombing raids, along with monuments and famous Ukrainian mosaics. 

Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture and Information Policy is continuing to record massive damage to the cultural infrastructure in Ukraine as a result of Russian aggression. By 25th January 2024, 1,938 cultural infrastructure facilities had been damaged, not including cultural heritage sites. Of these, 314 have been destroyed (16%). All over the country, from Kharkiv and Donetsk to Kyiv, Odesa and Lviv, more than 500 religious institutions of various denominations have suffered, including Orthodox, Greek and Roman Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Protestant and more. It is not just our history that is being destroyed, but our future. At the UNESCO conference, Culture Minister Karandieiev said that Russia had completely destroyed 50 arts education institutes in the main invasion alone.

I am aware that, as the Ukrainian writer and intellectual Oksana Sabuzhko said: “You can't mourn things if you didn’t know they existed". My fellow Germans, my job is to help you understand more about Ukrainian culture and, with the help of partners like ifa, we will succeed. But, above all, once again I’d like to thank the Ukraine 5 AM Coalition for its invaluable work, because there is no peace without freedom and justice.