Museums in Kiev

National Historical Museum of Ukraine

There are several museums in Kiev, Ukraine on topics ranging from art to history, transport, and religion. They constitute an important aspect of Kiev's focus on knowledge, culture, and history.

Art museums

National Art Museum of Ukraine

Museum of Ukrainian folk art

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] Earlier, it was the Museum of History which had artifacts of the past. Following the nationalization of artwork in the Soviet Union the museum came to possess a large collection of artwork.^[2] The exhibits are displayed in 21 galleries, representing iconographic and sculptural objects of Ukraine, alongside paintings by artists such as Taras Shevchenko, Kyriak Kostandi, and M. Pymonenko.^[1] Artifacts in the museum include the Medieval arts (from the 14th to 19th centuries^[3]), Romantic art of the 18th-19th centuries with some sketch works of Shevchenko, paintings of the socialist era of the Soviet union, and posters of the Revolutionary period.^[2] The museum also houses the pre-19th century wooden icon of the "Last Judgment", which was earlier in the St. Michael Monastery in Kiev.^[4] The small icon of Saint George which was located in the store room of the Mariupol museum was restored by L.H.Chlenova and I.P. Dorofuenko and transferred to the Kiev museum, supervised by Nikolai V.Pertsev who was also involved in the initial restoration of the museum. When the icon was found, its silver covering was missing and it was in a poor condition.^[5]

The Museum of Ukrainian folk art depicts the country's folk decorative art. It is located in Pyrohovo and has 300 exhibits, with displays consisting of churches, barns, windmills, huts, and craft exhibits. Guides dressed in typical village costumes of the region explain the various aspects of village crafts and lifestyles.^[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 artifacts, not only from Ukraine, but also of foreign art from many other countries.^[6] The artifacts in the museum consist of a few pieces of ceramics dated to the 9th to 13th and 19th to 20th centuries, apart from antiquaries of glazed tiles belonging to 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 artifacts dated to the 6th and 7th centuries on the top floor, and it has items of Greek sculpture. The eastern wing of the museum has exhibits of art related to Buddhism and Islam and also Chinese culture.^[3] The building gives an impression of a bourgeois mansion, with post-Renaissance, Western European paintings and portraits by notable artists like Rubens, David, Reynolds and Velsquez. The architecture of the building itself is museum worthy and the furniture in the museum are also considered to be pieces of art.^[8] A sixth-century icon of prominence in the museum is that of the Saints Sergios and Bakchos, which was brought from the Saint Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai by Bishop Uspensky.^[9]

The Pinchuk Art Centre is a museum dedicated to the Eastern European art and culture and is privately owned by Viktor Pinchuk. It is also an international center for displaying contemporary art.^[10] The Ivan Honchar Museum was established in Kiev in September 1993 to exhibit the personal collection of Ivan Makarovych Honchar to promote national culture, with emphasis on Ukrainian art and ethnography.^[11]

History museums

Museum of the Great Patriotic War

The Museum of the Great Patriotic War is a complex which commemorates the Great Patriotic War.^[12] Its collection consists of about 300,000 pieces, and it has been visited by over 24 million visitors.^[12]

National Museum-Preserve "Battle for Kyiv 1943

The National Museum-Preserve "Battle for Kyiv 1943" is dedicated to the Kiev 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.^[13] The museum, which opened in 1904, was shifted to Kiev-Pechersk Lavra in 1935 and later during the war to Ufa, and after the war the collections were moved back to Kiev 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.^[14] The first foundation stone of the church in Kiev, built in 989, is located in the precincts of the museum.^[13] The church was destroyed by the Mongols in 1240 and was never reconstructed.

The Kiev Archive Museum of Transitional Period was a brief Nazi propaganda museum that was established by German occupants in Ukraine in 1942.^[15] to October 1942.^[16] The expositions were oriented specifically to "achievements" of the German occupation and crimes of Joseph Stalin's regime.^[16] 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.^[17] 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, ^[16] and was soon closed and did not reopen.^[17]

Transportation museums

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 Kiev, which was inaugurated on 30 September 2003 by Leonid Kuchma, the President of Ukraine at the time.^[18] 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.^[18]

The Kiev Railway Museum is situated at the Kyïv-Passazhirskyi Station. The Kiev Museum of Electric Transportation, originally Kiev Tram History Museum, was founded in 1992,^[19] The Kiev Subway Museum is also of note.

Cultural museums

Kiev 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.^[20]

There are several museums dedicated to the city's infrastructure, including Building of Pedagogical Museum, Kiev Fire Service Museum, Kiev Pharmacy Museum, Kiev Recycling Museum, Kiev Sewer Museum, Kiev Water Museum, and the National Museum of Health Care in Kiev.^[21] Other cultural museums include Mamayeva Sloboda, Mikhail Bulgakov Museum, Museum of Cultural Heritage in Kiev, 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 Kiev Pechersk Lavra.

References

Bibliograpghy

• 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; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) (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.  Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthor= (help)

External links

Media related to Museums in Kiev at Wikimedia Commons