ICMM Congress 2024: Cultural Heritage Sustainability and Museums in War Plenary Session

Value of the Information & Strength of the Argument

The informational value of this session lies in its direct, first-hand testimony from practitioners operating inside an active war zone. Dr Paliienko’s account is dense with institutional specifics: the 1995 founding of the Central Naval Museum, its 2013 reorganisation as a branch of the National Museum of Military History, the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the resulting loss of the Balaklava submarine base complex and the Mikhailovskaya battery, and the subsequent relocation to Kyiv. He names concrete assets lost in 2022 — the research vessel exploded during the Russian retreat from Kherson, and the corvette Vinnytsia struck by a missile and capsized — and describes an unusual adaptation: museum researchers trained as mine-clearance operators using ROVs and side-scan sonar. The argument here is essentially testimonial and institutional rather than analytical; it demonstrates how a museum can reconfigure itself as a support structure for military and humanitarian operations. Dr Kobaliia’s contribution is more analytical. He builds a comparative argument around two opposing hydrological processes triggered by the Kakhovka dam breach: upstream, a dramatic drop in water level (about 6 m in the upper reaches, up to 16 m to the south) that converted submerged archaeological sites into terrestrial ones and improved underwater visibility by removing silt; downstream, a roughly tenfold increase in flow speed that scoured the riverbed, shifted sand masses capable of carrying objects over 300 kg, and scattered wooden ship remains. He anchors this in a historical analogue from 1998, when a spillway release washed away 4,000 m² of bank and displaced a 1738 brigantine’s stern 8 km downstream. The reasoning is coherent and grounded in observed stratigraphy, though the quantitative claims are delivered orally and cannot be independently checked within the session. The overall argumentative strength is high on descriptive accuracy and causal mechanism, moderate on evidentiary traceability.

Scientific Rigor, Source Quality, Title Accuracy

The session operates within a scholarly framework: both speakers are credentialed specialists, one a curator with a doctorate and the other a leading maritime archaeologist, and the moderator is a museum director general. The claims are presented as professional field reports rather than as peer-reviewed findings, and no formal bibliography or citation apparatus is used. Some references are made to institutions and collaborators — the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences, the Ukrainian scientific registry of underwater heritage, an expedition with Robert Ballard, and a laboratory for remote detection of explosives developed with a professor from a German university — but these are mentioned in passing without published references. The hydrological figures for the Kakhovka reservoir (area, volume loss, water-level drops) are stated with precision but without a cited source. The title corresponds faithfully to the content: it announces a plenary on cultural heritage sustainability and museums in war, and the two talks address exactly that, one from a museum-management perspective and one from an archaeological and environmental perspective. The session does not overpromise relative to what it delivers.

The title accurately announces a plenary on cultural heritage sustainability and museums in war; the content delivers exactly that, with two Ukrainian case studies.

7/10

The session is a first-hand professional account from two Ukrainian heritage specialists, one a museum curator and the other a maritime archaeologist and serving soldier. It provides direct testimony on wartime destruction, displacement and salvage, with concrete institutional and site names. However, it is a conference plenary, not a peer-reviewed study: figures are given orally without citations, some claims are unverifiable in real time, and the transcript is truncated before the second speaker finishes.

Markers derived by PSI from the transcript: the creator did not define chapters.

• 00:00Lars Amreus introduces the plenary on maritime heritage in wartime and frames the invasion as an act of colonisation targeting Ukrainian culture and heritage.
• 03:00Dr Sergii Paliienko begins his remote presentation, opening with a personal memory of a colleague later killed at the front.
• 07:00History of the Central Naval Museum of Ukraine, including the Balaklava submarine base and the Mikhailovskaya battery.
• 12:00The 2014 annexation of Crimea: loss of buildings, collections, research vessels and the restoration laboratory, and the museum's relocation to Kyiv.
• 18:002022 losses: the research vessel destroyed during the Russian retreat from Kherson and the corvette Vinnytsia sunk by missile strike.
• 21:00Creation of a humanitarian mine-clearance unit with museum researchers trained as ROV and side-scan sonar operators.
• 24:15Dr Dmytro Kobaliia is introduced as director of archaeology at the Khortytsia National Reserve and a volunteer soldier since day one of the invasion.
• 27:00Overview of Ukraine's underwater cultural heritage, including submerged settlements, cemeteries and crossing points.
• 30:00The June 2023 destruction of the Kakhovka dam and its hydrological consequences: reservoir area down 91%, volume down 96%.
• 35:00Upstream effects: emergence of previously submerged sites such as the Zaporizhian Sich and the city of Shehr al-Jedid, and improved underwater visibility.
• 40:00Downstream effects: tenfold flow increase, riverbed scouring, displacement of heavy wreckage and 18th-century flotilla ships.