On Thursday, November 27, at the Zhovten Cinema in Kyiv, the Raphael Lemkin Society, together with the cultural institution MizhVukhamy and the Dovzhenko Center, hosted a closed screening of Tim Slade’s Destruction of Memory and a discussion on the deliberate destruction of culture during Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Released in 2016 and based on the book by Robert Bevan, Slade’s film examines the destruction of cultural heritage as a tool of genocidal warfare. Despite differing ideologies, totalitarian and terrorist regimes rely on similar methods — seeking to erase the identity of the peoples they aim to subjugate.
The director noted: “The central message of the film is that when people are under attack, we must also recognize attacks on culture as an integral part of the crime.” He also added: “Ukrainian cultural heritage is unique and exceptional, and protecting it is vital not only for Ukraine but for the entire world, which can take part in preserving and understanding it.”
In the film, Slade draws on the work of lawyer and scholar Raphael Lemkin, who argued that stripping a nation of its culture is a way to destroy a nation even when its people remain alive.
The urgency of this warning is especially clear today. Russia continues to systematically target Ukrainian culture: destroying museums and libraries, suppressing the Ukrainian language, rewriting historical memory, and carrying out the russification of children and mass passportization in occupied territories.
The event took place one week after the commemoration of the Holodomor — a crime that Raphael Lemkin was among the first to identify as genocide against the Ukrainian people. Lemkin warned that a nation can be erased when its intelligentsia, clergy, and rural communities — the bearers of its culture, beliefs, and shared identity — are destroyed.
Anastasiia Oleksii, Executive Director of the Raphael Lemkin Society, emphasized: “The Raphael Lemkin Society urges a broader understanding of genocide — to look beyond viewing it solely as the physical destruction of a people and to recognize attacks on cultural heritage. This is a complex crime that can be carried out with genocidal intent, just as Raphael Lemkin described when developing the concept of ‘genocide.’”
Participants — scholars, cultural practitioners, journalists, and legal experts — discussed why understanding the Ukrainian experience requires a global perspective and what tools of international law can be used to stop crimes against culture.
The Raphael Lemkin Society continues its work to amplify international attention to crimes against culture and to advance accountability for the Russian Federation and all those responsible for these attacks.