The National History Museums of Sweden are launching a new research project to deepen knowledge of Ukrainian objects in collections at Swedish museums and objects with Nordic connections in museum collections in Ukraine. The project is led by Associate Professor Fedir Androshchuk and will also examine how the collections have been expressed and how they can affect national identities.

Swedish museums hold archaeological artifacts, historical objects and documents originating in Ukraine that found their way to Sweden in various ways during the Viking Age, the early Middle Ages or the Reformation and provide material evidence of contacts between the countries. The same applies to Nordic objects in Ukraine.

The new collection history research project will draw attention to and report on this material and examine how knowledge of the collections can influence national narratives in both Sweden and Ukraine. Another task is to develop theoretical and methodological tools that can help Swedish and Ukrainian museums identify the impact.

Fedir Androshchuk, Director of the National Museum of Ukrainian History in Kyiv, has worked as a researcher in archaeology in both Sweden and Ukraine and has extensive experience of the Viking Age. He emphasizes the importance of investigating the role of museums in the creation of national identities, now actualized by the fact that Ukrainian cultural heritage is threatened by Russian state ideology and the invasion.

The research project Sweden and Ukraine in museum collection history and exhibition narratives was initiated in March 2022 and is funded by the Torsten Söderberg Foundation with 1.6 million SEK. It has been developed in collaboration with the Nordic Museum Foundation, the Swedish National Heritage Board, the State Historical Museums and Fedir Androshchuk, director of the National Museum of Ukrainian History in Kyiv.

Important preparatory research activities in Kyiv, including the start of this research project, are made possible with funding from the Fund for Collection to Ukrainian Museums at the Nordic Museum Foundation. Their collection, which started shortly after Russia's renewed war, aims to save Ukrainian cultural heritage.

Read the news at the National Historical Museums.