Draft:Oleh Shovenko
Ukrainian cultural producer, archivist, and writer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oleh Shovenko (Ukrainian: Олег Шовенко) is a Ukrainian cultural producer, archivist, artist, and writer based in Paris. He served as Deputy Artistic Director and Director of Library and Publishing Projects at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (BYHMC) in Kyiv, where he built the center's publishing program, co-assembled its photographic archive — part of a documentary collection now inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register — and created several public art installations at the memorial site.[1][2] He is also the founder of Palatka, an independent bookstore that operated in Kyiv from 2018 to 2020. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Shovenko served as a combat engineer in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.[3][4]
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Palatka bookstore
Kurenivka tragedy installation
Oleh Shovenko | |
|---|---|
| Олег Шовенко | |
| Born | |
| Occupations | Cultural producer, archivist, writer, artist |
| Years active | 2018–present |
| Known for | Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center Palatka bookstore Kurenivka tragedy installation |
Early life and education
Shovenko was born in Kherson, Ukraine, and moved to Kyiv to study at the Kyiv National Economic University. His early interests ranged from journalism to musical anthropology before he turned to philosophy.[5]
Career
Palatka bookstore (2018–2020)
In July 2018, Shovenko founded Palatka (Ukrainian: Палатка, lit. "Tent"), an independent bookstore in Kyiv's Bekhterivskyi Lane specializing in European philosophy, non-fiction, film theory, urbanism, and art publications. He modelled the shop on independent bookstores such as OFR in Paris and Falanster in Moscow.[6] The bookstore hosted literary evenings and partnered with the social bakery Good Bread from Good People.[7]
Over eighteen months, Palatka operated in three different locations before closing on 30 January 2020, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic. Its trajectory became a widely discussed case study in the Ukrainian media on the challenges facing independent bookshops, generating features in Vector, The Village Україна, Hmarochos, bit.ua, and AIN.Business.[5][8]
Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center
Shovenko joined the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center as Director of Library and Publishing Projects, later serving as Deputy Artistic Director under filmmaker Ilya Khrzhanovsky.[9][10] The BYHMC book Babyn Yar: Past, Present, Future (Spector Books, 2021) lists Shovenko among the artists whose interventions were planned, designed, and built for the memorial site, alongside Marina Abramović, Manuel Herz, and Andrés Jaque.[2]
Publishing program
Shovenko built the center's publishing program from the ground up. By 2021, the BYHMC had published 18 titles in a single year, with 19 more in preparation.[11] The catalog ranged from first Ukrainian translations of major Holocaust literature to original archival research and scholarly works (see selected publications below). Shovenko also initiated a partnership with the Berlin-based academic publisher De Gruyter to launch Eastern European Holocaust Studies, a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal — the first of its kind focused on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe.[12]
Photographic archive
In 2020, Shovenko and documentary photographer Valerii Myloserdov assembled the BYHMC Photo Collection, a 300-page volume containing 450 photographs of Jewish life in Ukraine from the late 19th century to the 1990s. Over nine months, the pair surveyed thousands of prints from state and private archives, and acquired photographs at flea markets, online auctions, and from private collectors.[13] This collection forms part of the Documentary Heritage of Babyn Yar, inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 2023.[1]
Art installations
Shovenko authored several installations in the BYHMC's "Looking into the Past" (Ukrainian: Погляд у минуле) series of site-specific public art works at Babyn Yar.[2]
His most prominent work, unveiled in March 2021, commemorates the 60th anniversary of the Kurenivka tragedy of 1961. The installation takes the form of a brick enlarged tenfold, composed of over 100 varieties of bricks used in the construction of Kyiv over 200 years, the oldest dating to 1843. An aquarium atop the structure holds 600 litres of industrial pulp — the waste whose uncontrolled accumulation caused the 1961 disaster. Built-in monoculars display footage from the documentary Babi Yar. Context by Sergei Loznitsa.[14] The opening ceremony was attended by Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, the first President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk, and filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa.[15]
Military service
After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Shovenko enlisted in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and served as a combat engineer, laying mines along the Belarusian border. He subsequently left the army after experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.[3][4]
Later career
Following his demobilization, Shovenko worked as a fixer for international journalists covering the war in Ukraine, and later became involved in film production. He subsequently moved to Paris.
Personal life
Shovenko's cousin, Junior Lieutenant Maksym Shovenko (callsign "Prepper"), served in the 140th Separate Reconnaissance Battalion of the Ukrainian Marines. After completing officer training at the Academy of Land Forces, he led a storm group in the fighting near Urozhaine, Donetsk Oblast, where he was killed by tank fire on 8 July 2023 at the age of 26, having successfully captured a key Russian position. He was recommended for a posthumous state award.[16][17]
Selected publications (BYHMC)
As Director of Publishing Projects, Shovenko oversaw the following publications by the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center:
- Spiegelman, Art (2020). Маус. Сповідь уцілілого (in Ukrainian). Видавництво / BYHMC. — first Ukrainian edition
- Щоденник Анни Франк. Графічна адаптація (in Ukrainian). Ari Folman (adaptation), David Polonsky (illustrations). Видавництво / BYHMC. 2020.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) - BYHMC Photo Collection 2020. Oleh Shovenko, Valerii Myloserdov. Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center. 2020.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)[13] - Rees, Laurence (2021). Auschwitz (in Ukrainian). Лабораторія / BYHMC.
- Ehrenburg, Ilya; Grossman, Vasily (2021). Чорна книга (in Ukrainian). Дух і літера / BYHMC. — first Ukrainian edition
- How Beautiful Are Your Dwelling Places, Jacob. Park Books / BYHMC. 2021. — 2 volumes[2]
- Babyn Yar: Past, Present, Future. Spector Books / BYHMC. 2021.[2]
- Righteous Among the Nations. Ukraine. Jewish Confederation of Ukraine / BYHMC. 2021.
- Family Memory series — 4 volumes: Archives of Dina Pronicheva, Riva Zeldich, Iser Kuperman, and the Parmatov family[11]
- Хроніка Голокосту (Chronicle of the Holocaust)[11]
- Сталіндорфський район: документи й матеріали (Stalindorf District: Documents and Materials)[11]
- Littell, Jonathan (2022). Благоволительниці (in Ukrainian). BYHMC. — first Ukrainian edition[18]
- Eastern European Holocaust Studies — peer-reviewed journal, co-published with De Gruyter, from 2022[12]
In media
Shovenko features prominently in a December 2023 Smithsonian magazine article by Joshua Hammer, who profiles the Babyn Yar Memorial Center's wartime transformation with Shovenko as his guide through the site and its unfinished installations.[3]
He is mentioned by name in Masha Gessen's April 2022 The New Yorker feature on the Babyn Yar memorial project and its disruption by the Russian invasion.[4]
Jonathan Littell's An Inconvenient Place (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2024), a fragmentary essay on Babyn Yar and the Bucha massacre, draws on the author's visits to the memorial site conducted with BYHMC staff including Shovenko.[19]