Museums in Kyiv

The National Art Museum of Ukraine

The National Folk Decorative Art Museum

The National Art Museum of Ukraine is dedicated to Ukrainian art. Built in the 19th century, the museum has the appearance of a Greek temple.[1] It was previously the Museum of History, which held many important historical artefacts. Following the nationalisation of all works of art in the Soviet Union, the museum acquired a large collection of artworks.[2] The museum's exhibits are displayed in twenty-one galleries, representing the icons and sculpture of Ukraine, alongside paintings by artists such as Taras Shevchenko, Kyriak Kostandi, and Mykola Pymonenko.[1] There are artefacts from the Medieval period (the 14th to 19th centuries),[3]), the Romantic period (the 18th and 19th centuries), and the modern era. The museum possesses sketches by Shevchenko, paintings of the socialist era of the Soviet Union, and posters of the Revolutionary period.[2] The museum houses the pre-19th century wooden icon of the 'Last Judgment', which was previously kept in Kyiv's St. Michael Monastery.[4] The small icon of Saint George which was located in the store room of a museum in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol was restored by L.H. Chlenova and I.P. Dorofuenko and transferred to Kyiv, under the supervision of Nikolai V. Pertsev, who was also involved in the initial restoration of the museum.[5]

The Pyrohovo Open Air Museum showcases Ukraine's folk decorative arts. It has churches, barns, windmills, huts, and craft exhibits. Guides dressed in regional village costume explain aspects of village life.[2]

The Museum of Western and Oriental Art, also known as the Museum of Art of Bogdan and Varvara Khanenko, is a treasure house of artefacts from Ukraine and around the world.[6] The museum possesses ceramics dating from the 9th century, and glazed tiles from the 14th to 17th centuries. There are some bronzes and embroidery work.[7] In the western wing of the museum among the rare Byzantine antiquaries there is also an impressive painting of Hieronymus Bosch's Temptation of St Anthony. There are four unique religious artefacts dated from the 6th and 7th centuries on the top floor, and items of Greek sculpture. The eastern wing has exhibits of art related to Buddhism, Islam and Chinese culture.[3] The building gives an impression of a bourgeois mansion, with post-Renaissance, Western European paintings and portraits by Rubens, Velázquez, Joshua Reynolds and Jacques-Louis David. The building is architecturally important and many pieces of furniture in the museum are pieces of art.[8] The museum possesses an important 6th-century icon of Sergius and Bacchus, brought from Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai by Bishop Uspensky.[9]

Other art museums in Kyiv include the Pinchuk Art Centre, a museum dedicated to Eastern European art and culture, which is privately owned by Viktor Pinchuk. It is an international centre for the display of contemporary art.[10] The Ivan Honchar Museum was established in Kyiv in September 1993 to exhibit the personal collection of Ivan Makarovych Honchar. Its aim is to promote the national culture of Ukraine, with an emphasis on Ukrainian art and ethnography.[11] The Mystetskyi Arsenal is an art exhibition space.[12]

Museum of The History of Ukraine in World War II

The Museum of The History of Ukraine in World War II is a complex which commemorates the Eastern Front of World War II.[13] Its collection consists of about 300,000 pieces, and it has been visited by over 24 million visitors.[13]

National Museum-Preserve "Battle for Kyiv 1943"

The National Museum-Preserve "Battle for Kyiv 1943" is dedicated to the Kyiv Strategic Offensive Operation of autumn 1943. The museum exposition narrates the events of the autumn of 1943, the Battle of the Dnieper and the Lyutezh Offensive Operation during the Battle of Kiev (1943). The Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum in Podil is a striking display of the tragedy of the nuclear disaster.[2] The symbolic representation of many old road signs of the deserted towns and cities are stated to give an eerie feeling, and there are a number of Surrealist pictures of the disaster.[2]

The National Historical Museum of Ukraine is a national heritage museum dedicated to the theme of Ukrainian independence. The museum highlights the struggle for independence tracing back from the Slavic times to the present.[14] The museum, which opened in 1904, was shifted to Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in 1935 and later during the war to Ufa, and after the war the collections were moved back to Kyiv to the present location. It has many archeological artifacts found locally, apart from ethnographical and numismatic exhibits, paintings and sculptures, old books and many other artifacts. The exhibits also trace the ancient history of Ukraine from the time of Trypillya settlements, weaponry of ancient Polovtsy, artifacts of Kievan Rus period, the Soviet rule and also of the Orange Revolution, and to the present. Exhibits related to nationally-renowned dancer Serge Lifar are also on display here.[15] The first foundation stone of the church in Kyiv, built in 989, is located in the precincts of the museum.[14] The church was destroyed by the Mongols in 1240 and was never reconstructed.

The Kyiv Archive Museum of Transitional Period was a brief Nazi propaganda museum that was established by German occupants in Ukraine in 1942.[16] to October 1942.[17] The expositions were oriented specifically to "achievements" of the German occupation and crimes of Joseph Stalin's regime.[17] The museum's director was the Ukrainian historian and former mayor Oleksandr Ohloblyn who used this opportunity to organize an exhibition about cultural monuments destroyed by Bolsheviks.[18] Several historians, such as Oleksandr Hruzynsky, Svitozar Drahomanov, Natalia Polonska-Vasylenko etc., were appointed scientific advisors of the museum, but it was not very successful,[17] and was soon closed and did not reopen.[18]

The Toilet History Museum, located in the Kyiv Fortress, opened in 2006. It contains the largest collection of toilet-related souvenirs in the world and chronicles the history of the toilet from pre-biblical times to the present.[19] [20]

Vintage aircraft on display at the Ukraine State Aviation Museum, Kyiv

The Ukraine State Aviation Museum is an aviation museum located next to Zhulyany Airport in Kyiv, which was inaugurated on 30 September 2003 by Leonid Kuchma, the President of Ukraine at the time.[21] Its location was formerly the Educational Air Base of KIIGA. The museum offers some 70 exhibits on aircraft and helicopters, growing from an initial collection of about 30. The museum is one of the larger aviation museums displaying items related to Soviet aircraft development in the 20th century. On display is an exclusive "Backfire Collection" including Tu-22M missile-bombers, MiGs, and Jets etc. The primary functional parts of aircraft on display in the museum are stated to be in working condition.[21]

The Kyiv Railway Museum is situated at the Kyïv-Passazhirskyi Station. The Kyiv Museum of Electric Transportation, originally Kyiv Tram History Museum, was founded in 1992,[22] The Kyiv Subway Museum is also of note.

Kyiv fortress is a 19th-century fortification complex. The buildings later being used as barracks, and for storage and incarceration facilities. The Kosyi Kaponir became a prison for the political inmates in the 1900s–1920s and was later turned into a Soviet museum, now a Ukrainian modern museum. A small fortress built in 1872 on Lysa Hora (Bald Mountain), and in 1906 became a place of executions for convicted political inmates. It is now a landscape reserve and part of the museum complex.[23] A. Pushkin's Museum is situated in the house where another writer M. Bulgakov used to live. Pushkin is the greatest Russian poet of the 18th-19th century. The intravital edition of “Yevgeniy Onegin” is among the exhibits. It contains author signs of the poet’s friends and contemporaries – not just literary men, but also famous politicians and statesmen.

Other cultural museums include Mamayeva Sloboda, Mikhail Bulgakov Museum, Museum of Cultural Heritage in Kyiv, One Street Museum, Pyrohiv, and Savka House. In addition, several churches have museums within their complexes, such as St Andrew's Church, St Sophia Cathedral, St Cyril Church, St Nicholas Cathedral, and Kyiv Pechersk Lavra.

There are several museums dedicated to the city's infrastructure, including Building of Pedagogical Museum, Kyiv Fire Service Museum, Kyiv Pharmacy Museum, Kyiv Recycling Museum, Kyiv Sewer Museum, Kyiv Water Museum, and the National Museum of Health Care in Kyiv.[24]

The Water Museum (Water-information Centre) is one of the most popular cultural institutions in Kyiv. It is located in the very centre of the city in Khreshchatyi Park. The Water Museum was established in 2003 in oder to improve people's awareness about water resources and their value for the community.

Bibliography

• Bloom, Jonathan M.; Blair, Sheila (2009). The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530991-1.
• Cornelis, Karel Berkhoff (2004). Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02078-8.
• Duca, Marc Di Duca; Ragozin, Leonid (1 June 2012). Lonely Planet Ukraine. Lonely Planet. ISBN 978-1-74220-641-7.
• Evans, Andrew; Pasquale, Massimiliano Di (2013). Ukraine. Bradt Travel Guides. ISBN 978-1-84162-450-1.
• Grotowski, Piotr (24 September 2010). Arms and Armour of the Warrior Saints: Tradition and Innovation in Byzantine Iconography (843–1261). BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-18548-7.
• Hardaway, Ashley (October 2011). Ukraine (Other Places Travel Guide). Other Places Publishing. ISBN 978-1-935850-04-5.
• Himka, John-Paul (2009). Last Judgment Iconography in the Carpathians. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-9809-2.
• Pevny, Olenka Z. Pevny (1 January 2000). Perceptions of Byzantium and Its Neighbors: 843-1261 : the Metropolitan Museum of Art Symposia. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN 978-0-87099-971-0.

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