Three months ago, a team of Ukrainian creatives launched the “Common Heritage” crowdfunding project. His goal is to buy things with a history to give them to the museum and save them from oblivion. In collaboration with the illustrator Anastasia Rudyk, “Common Heritage” launches a poster for sale, inspired by one of the first purchases of the project – the collection of things of Hanna Mykhailivna Baranetskaya, the daughter of a Ukrainian Sich rifleman.

Hanna was born in the village of Strygantsi, Ivano-Frankivsk region, in 1926, and at a young age found herself in exile in the Irkutsk region. In 1947, she embroidered a picture depicting her native village and adding the inscription: “I am reminded of my native home, where my dear family lives, where I also spent my young summers.”

Together with Hanna, Olena Kovalyuk from the city of Kosiv, whose name was Oksana, was exiled. She gave Hanna two albums of drawings that she also created in exile. The cover of one of the albums and motifs from the embroidered picture became the basis of the poster, which can be bought on the “Common Heritage” page on Instagram. All profits will be used to purchase ancient folk objects for Ivan Honchar’s museum.

Alina Bozhniuk and Anna Kascheyeva, co-founders of “Common Heritage”, say: “Stories like this one should live. The creativity of Ukrainians who passed through Soviet camps and exile is a vivid testimony of what this “friendship of peoples” really was, and how love for one’s own home, one in the whole world, supported even in the darkest times. Thanks to museums, we can preserve these stories so that they become an inspiration for creating new meanings and new works.”

Illustrator Anastasia Rudyk adds: “By studying the past, we can better understand and identify ourselves in the present. This initiative is of great importance for the preservation of cultural heritage. The current war proves once again that it is important to remember and protect our common history.”