The Silent Battle for Ukraine’s Soul: How Museums Are Erasing a Nation
The fight for Ukrainian recognition rages on
Greetings Warriors
Today’s war is not just fought with missiles and drones. It’s being waged in galleries and glass display cases—in quiet corners of the world’s most respected museums. And while the explosions may echo louder in Ukraine, a different kind of damage is being done in places like New York, London, and Paris. Let’s talk about it.
The Label That Lies
It’s been four long years since Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. While soldiers fight on the front lines, another battle has quietly unfolded in the realm of culture. Some of the world’s top institutions—including MoMA, the Tate, and the Centre Pompidou—still label legendary artists like Kazimir Malevych, Alexandra Ekster, and Vladimir Tatlin as “Russian.”
Let that sink in. Artists born in Kyiv, educated under Ukrainian light, and inspired by the soil of their homeland… misattributed by the very gatekeepers of culture. It’s more than an oversight—it’s complicity.
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The Stolen Art Campaign Begins
But Ukraine isn’t staying silent.
Enter The Shadows Project, a youth-led cultural NGO and creative studio. With bold vision and fire in their hearts, they launched The Stolen Art Campaign—a digital-age counteroffensive aimed at reclaiming the truth. Their mission? Correct the mislabeling. Restore the identity. Protect the legacy.
This isn’t just a campaign. It’s a cultural revolution disguised as an Instagram filter.
Click to Resist: The Digital Arsenal
The brilliance of this movement lies in its simplicity and scale. Museum visitors can now use an Instagram filter to identify mislabeled Ukrainian art. Snap a photo, tag the institution, and add the hashtag #fixthelabel.
And just like that—awareness spreads.
This guerilla-style activism doesn’t stop online. There are organized museum visits in Paris, New York, and London. There’s a sleek streetwear line (partnered with Ukrainian brand RDNY) that turns protest into wearable pride. And at the core? A dedicated public database that tracks label errors and presents meticulously researched biographies in English. It’s education, visibility, and resistance all rolled into one.
When Culture Becomes a Weapon
Why does this matter? Because culture isn’t just background noise—it’s the soul of a nation.
Agatha Gorski, co-founder of The Shadows Project, put it bluntly: “Russia has made it its state policy to erase Ukrainian identity.” From bombing museums to distorting attribution records, this is historical sabotage on a grand scale.
To date, over 2,000 cultural institutions in Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed. That’s not collateral damage—that’s targeted cultural erasure. And when Western institutions get the labels wrong, they reinforce that erasure. Whether intentionally or through neglect, they perpetuate Putin’s lie that Ukraine is just a subset of Russia.
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Small Wins, Big Impact
But this isn’t a story of despair—it’s a story of defiance.
Because of The Stolen Art Campaign:
The Brooklyn Museum reclassified a landscape by Ilya Repin from "Russian" to "Ukrainian."
The Cleveland Museum of Art updated Alexandra Ekster’s label to include her Ukrainian heritage.
Heavyweights like the Tate, MoMA, and the Louvre are now reevaluating their catalogues.
Already, the campaign has reached over 300,000 people, sparked 15+ cultural partnerships, and ignited a dialogue that can no longer be ignored.
Ilya Repin: A Symbol Reclaimed
Let me pause here and bring it home. Not long ago, I wrote about Ilya Repin, a brilliant painter born in what is now Ukraine. For years, the world hailed him as a “Russian master,” his brushstrokes absorbed into Moscow’s narrative. But Repin’s roots run deeper than that. His heart, his inspiration—it was all Ukrainian.
Now, thanks to this movement and the growing demand for historical truth, Repin is finally being recognized as a Ukrainian artist, not a Russian one. It’s poetic justice. It’s long overdue. And it’s proof that cultural correction is possible—if we demand it.
(If you haven’t read my full piece on Repin, check it out here — it’s a testament to how tangled identity can become when history is filtered through imperialism.)
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Why We Must Keep Fighting
This isn’t just about labels in a museum. This is about who gets to write history.
Ukraine is fighting for survival not just on the battlefield—but in the pages of textbooks, the plaques beneath oil paintings, the way a curator pronounces a name. Defending Ukrainian culture is not a sidebar to the war effort—it is the war effort.
And this is where we come in, Warriors. As artists, thinkers, rebels, and dreamers—we must use our platforms to elevate truth. When a painting’s label lies, it’s our job to correct it. When history is manipulated, we must create new stories grounded in justice.
Because every mislabeled artwork is another wound to a nation’s soul.
Let us be the ones who say: Not on our watch.
