From March 1 to March 31, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with the Ukrainian Institute and Wikimedia Ukraine, will hold the annual information campaign "Ukraine’s Cultural Diplomacy Month".
This information campaign aims to increase the number of articles about Ukraine and its culture in Ukrainian and other languages, as Wikipedia is one of the world's largest and most accessible sources of information.
"Since 2021, when we initiated filling Wikipedia with true facts about Ukraine, the project has achieved remarkable success. It is important that this process has been going on for the fourth year in a row and is growing in scale, attracting caring people in Ukraine and around the world. I thank each and every one of them for their important contribution to this common cause. It is especially important now, in the context of countering Russia's attempts to destroy Ukrainian identity, distort Ukrainian history, appropriate our artists, and generally deny Ukraine's right to exist. The Month of Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy on Wikipedia is an important part of the strategy to promote truthful, fact-based narratives about Ukraine in the world," emphasized Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba.
This year's theme of the project is the decolonization of Ukrainian culture. Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the international community has become more interested in the still unexplored Ukrainian culture. Many artists, scientists, historical figures, and works of art are known in the world as Russian, while they are a fundamental part of the Ukrainian cultural heritage. The project aims to reveal the Ukrainian identity of these figures, the formation of their worldviews under the influence of Ukrainian culture, and to demonstrate their close connection with Ukraine.
"Cultural colonization is primarily aimed at subjugating and preventing independent development, independent formation of nations through culture. Russia has been appropriating Ukrainian cultural heritage for centuries, appropriating the most prominent Ukrainian artists and their achievements, and diminishing Ukrainian culture to the level of a small-town culture. Our task is to reclaim our own cultural heritage and tell its true story to the world," said Volodymyr Sheiko, Director General of the Ukrainian Institute.
Since 2021, more than 6,000 unique articles on Ukrainian culture in different languages have been created on Wikipedia as part of the information campaign. Thus, texts appeared on the platform not only in more common languages such as French, German, Japanese, Chinese, etc. but also in Arabic, Basque, Welsh, Indonesian, Tiap and Gujarati.
"We have been holding the Cultural Diplomacy Month on Wikipedia for four years now, and during this time, a large community of Wikimedians from all over the world has formed around it, helping to open Ukraine to the world step by step. For example, last year, 154 contributors from all over the world joined the campaign: from the United States and Canada to Malaysia and Japan. At the same time, we encourage all interested Ukrainians who know foreign languages to join: anyone can contribute to Wikipedia in any language they speak," said Ilya Korniyko, Chairman of the Board of Wikimedia Ukraine.
We invite everyone to join the project!
Information about the contest, the list of proposed articles and the terms of participation can be found here: ucdm.wikimedia.org.ua.
Contact person for media relations: Olena Neskorodiana, Communications Manager at Ukrainian Institute: [email protected]