Cultural heritage under the threat: new challenges and new opportunities for intercultural communications (the case of Borodyanka and Ivankiv in Ukraine)

The article claims that the issue of cultural heritage as a component
of the phenomenon of culture is at the center of social processes and
the attention of active actors of these processes. Attention is drawn to one of
the cardinal problems of this context — the preservation of cultural heritage
in conditions of catastrophic threats, primarily environmental and military, in
particular related to the challenges they generate and the impact they have
on intercultural communications. It is analyzed the specific background of the
situation with the artifacts of two small Ukrainian towns — Borodyanka and
Ivankiv, whose cultural heritage twice fell into turbulent situations: during the
Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Russian aggression (full-scale Russian invasion
of Ukraine in 2022). Among this heritage, attention is drawn to the story
of the rescue of the paintings of the naitivist artist Mariya Prymachenko and
the Borodyanka’s cockerel (Borodyanskyi pivnyk) — efforts to preserve them
provided an example of the conscious attitude of Ukrainians to the cultural heritage
of their people and its role, and therefore Ukrainian culture in general,
in intercultural communications. It is noted that the appearance of graffiti by
the British street-artist Banksy on the walls of destroyed houses in Borodyanka
became a sign of Ukrainians’ interest in the art of other nations and a kind of
invitation to intercultural communications.
Episodes of consolidation at the national and international levels aimed at
preserving the cultural heritage of peoples and the development of intercultural
communications and intercultural interaction are shown.