IZOLYATSIA Foundation invites to the presentation European Industrial Heritage in Eastern Ukraine by Ukrainian film director and screenwriter Korniy Hrytsiuk
On 11 January 2024, at 19:00, the IZOLYATSIA invites you to join the "European Industrial Heritage in Eastern Ukraine" presentation by Ukrainian film director and screenwriter Korniy Hrytsiuk. During the presentation, Korniy and the foundation's team will present a website dedicated to the industrial history of eastern Ukraine's cities and what has happened to the heritage sites today. Korniy will talk about the creation of the documentary Eurodonbas, work with Ukrainian and international archives, research eastern Ukraine's history before the Soviet occupation, and filming in these cities.
Ukraine's industrial history is closely linked to developing enterprises and technologies in old Europe. In the 19th century, Donbas was the centre of state and independent investment in Western countries: entrepreneurs, engineers and workers from different countries travelled to the region searching for work and opportunities to build new businesses and introduce the latest technologies. Soviet occupation authorities hid this history and shifted the attention of official science and propaganda to Soviet industrialisation achievements. After Ukraine regained its independence, the opportunity to restore the memory of the region's close ties with the UK, Belgium, Germany, France and other countries, as well as to destroy the myth that the Donetsk and Luhansk regions were created exclusively by the Soviet government, returned.
After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian Federation destroyed most of the historical legacy objects that preserved the memory of these times, and now the memory of them remains only in the archives. The website European Industrial Heritage in Eastern Ukraine describes the research into the history of Donetsk, Mariupol, Lysychansk, and New York through the history of European industrial enterprises and what has happened to the heritage of these enterprises today. The research took place during the preparation of the documentary Eurodonbas.
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Korniy Gritsyuk is a Ukrainian film director and screenwriter. He has been working in the film industry since 2011. He has directed several short and feature films that have been screened at international film festivals and won awards. He is known for the films Train "Kyiv-War" and 2020 Deserted Country.
Eurodonbas is a documentary about the European historical legacy of Donbas, directed by Korniy Gritsyuk and produced by Anna Palenchuk. The film features unique architectural and industrial objects left behind by Europeans in the 19th century. To show the European history of Donbas, hidden by Soviet historians, the film crew collected information from the archives of Ukraine, Belgium and England. Film footage is of particular value nowadays, as it preserves monuments of European culture from the 19th century, many of which are destroyed forever.
European industrial heritage in Eastern Ukraine is a project of the IZOLYATSIA Foundation, within the framework of Critical Revealing of Communist Heritage in the V4 region, Ukraine and Georgia programme, implemented in cooperation with Vzdělávací a kulturní centrum Broumov (Czech Republic), Auróra Közösségi Ház (Hungary), MUA - Architecture & Placemaking (Georgia), and Malý Berlín (Slovakia). The aim of the programme is to explore the impact of the Soviet and communist legacy on the development of Central European countries, Georgia and Ukraine.
The project is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.