Holistic Heritage

The bare concrete structure of a decommissioned power plant, part of the Arsenał Gallery in Białystok in north-eastern Poland, is the home to an exhibition by Augustas Serapinas, a Vilnius-based artist who is putting a spotlight on the plight of regional wooden architecture.For the exhibition, Serapinas has deconstructed three wooden buildings, which have all been decommissioned, from the Podlasie region as well as from his native Lithuania. The title of the exhibition is Pine, spruce and aspen, a nod to the native species of the region’s extensive forests.Hosted by John Beauchamp and Katarzyna JagodzińskaOut of the wooden beams, Serapinas has created a kind of labyrinth, and we can walk in and out of the houses, and the wooden zigzag structures weave a stark contrast to the concrete hall which the exhibition is housed in.In this episode, we explore the plight of wooden vernacular architecture in the Podlasie region and beyond. Join us as we are in Białystok to see the exhibition for ourselves, and we are joined on the line by artist Augustas Serapinas and Matthew Post, a Podlasie-based curator originally from California who stands behind the idea for the exhibition.The universal message will remain topical even after the exhibition closes. Despite its captivating aesthetics we read it as a gesture of activism, calling for the saving of this ephemeral heritage.During the podcast we mention the Koźliki open air museum which we visited as part of the Ukraine Heritage Spotlight series: you can find out more here.

Dan Perjovschi is a Romanian artist, writer and journalist whose simple cartoon-like drawings provoke and appeal to audiences the world over.His work is politically and socially engaging, and his exhibitions – which he usually “installs” himself by painting directly onto museum walls – are extremely popular, with shows being held at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, MoMa in New York, as well as a whole host of other institutions.Perjovschi is often regarded as a disruptor, and his illustrations often provide a cynical – if not critical – view of the contemporary world with all its oddities and absurdities.As an artist, Perjovschi challenges our contemporary view on the cultural heritage produced and interpreted by institutions. In his role as an activist of sorts, he often questions authority – as well as the authority of the very places where he shows his art. How does that affect his creative process and how does he navigate our the ins and outs of our post-modern reality?The Hub’s John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska met Dan Perjovschi in Bucharest in October 2024 to discuss his work and his approach to art.There are a number of moments during this episode when Dan uses strong language. You have been warned!

It’s the first Thursday in December, and in the southern Polish city of Kraków a number of people have gathered around the Adam Mickiewicz monument on the Main Market Square for the annual nativity scene competition.Cracovian nativity scenes, or szopki, have been a regular fixture in the city since the 19th century, and since 1937 a competition has been running for the best-made cribs. But these are not your normal nativity scenes – yes of course, you have the Holy Family and it is representative for the Christian feast of Christmas, but what sets the Cracovian szopki apart is the technique in which they are made and their regional symbolism.In 2018 this festive tradition, which adds a colourful accent to the Christmas atmosphere of the city, was inscribed to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.The Hub’s John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska meet with Dr Andrzej Szoka, head of the Intangible Heritage Interpretation Centre of Kraków (part of the Museum of Kraków) to find out more this unique heritage.

Following our visit to the Tășuleasa Social and hiking a part of the Via Transilvanica (you can hear more in our episode on the Via Transilvanica here), we decide to carry on our journey through Romania and Bulgaria by taking in a few heritage sites. Our first destination is the village of Viscri, an old Saxon village which is home to a fortified church, one of seven Villages with Fortified Churches in Transylvania inscribed onto UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1999. Viscri also caught the attention of the British Royal Family, when Prince Charles – now King Charles III – bought a house there in 2006 and has since become an advocate for the region’s rich cultural heritage. After stopping off south of Bucharest for lunch we head over the Friendship Bridge into Bulgaria.Veliko Tarnovo, one of the oldest settlements in Bulgaria, has a history spanning some five millennia. It was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire and is now one of the country’s cultural centres. We visit the scenic hillside town and the old fortress of Tsarevets and then head for the Tuesday market in Pavlikeni – where we try some Bulgarian street food – and then hit the road towards the Black Sea coast.Up in the hills not too far away from Varna we visit another UNESCO heritage site. The Madara Rider or Madara Horseman is a large early medieval rock relief in the mountains near Shumen depicting a majestic rider. What is amazing about the site, however, is the fact that it is larger than life and is still visible after well over 1000 years.After going offline at Camping Kosmos in Durankulak, we head up towards the Danube Delta and stay in the port town of Tulcea before heading up over the Carpathians and towards the Bucovina region and the Humor Monastery, one of eight ‘Churches of Moldavia’ inscribed in to the UNESCO World Heritage list.We end the podcast at the National Museum of the Village in Bucharest. But we are already planning our next road trip!

Head of the Kraków Heritage Hub Katarzyna Jagodzińska speaks to Tamas Fejerdy, a long-standing expert on cultural heritage and president of the Hungarian ICOMOS national committee.Tamas Fejerdy is a treasure trove of knowledge about monuments and heritage, both in Hungary and across Europe. We speak broadly on today’s challenges of heritage protection in Hungary, matters of authenticity, the role of civil society when it comes to heritage, taking several sites and projects in Budapest and in the Hungarian provinces as illustrations.

Estonia is on the front line with regards to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Being in such a position has forced decision makers to rethink official policy in times of war. How to protect tangible cultural heritage? How to tackle the country’s dissonant Soviet heritage?With the invasion of Ukraine, what measures has Estonia put in place so far and what good practices in general can the rest of Europe take on board so as to safeguard its cultural heritage?The Kraków Heritage Hub’s John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska speak to Riin Alatalu, Vice-President of ICOMOS  who holds the UNESCO Chair of Cultural Heritage Studies at the Estonian Academy of Fine Arts. We met during the Europa Nostra Cultural Heritage Summit held in Bucharest in October 2024.

Oleksandra Kovalchuk is the deputy director of the Fine Arts Museum in Odesa as well as the co-founder of the Museum For Change NGO, which actively seeks and supports cultural institutions in Ukraine in preserving their collections and assisting in ongoing operations.Head of the Kraków Heritage Hub, Katarzyna Jagodzińska met with Oleksandra Kovalchuk at the International Cultural Centre in September 2024 to hear the latest on how Ukraine’s cultural heritage is being fought for against the odds.

In the latest podcast in the Holistic Heritage series, the Kraków Heritage Hub’s John Beauchamp is in Bucharest for the 2024 European Cultural Heritage Summit, where he takes a closer look at the European Heritage Awards / Europa Nostra Awards.Since 2002, the awards have championed the best cultural heritage initiatives from across Europe, with a total of just under 4,000 entries from as many as 46 countries. Why is the award so popular? And for all the programmes which have been awarded, what has the impact been of the award? Find out why it is so important to apply and get your project highlighted by Europe’s leading cultural heritage organisation.In the podcast we hear from Jacek Purchla, Vice-President of Europa Nostra who was also Chairman of the awards jury in 2024. We also hear from Agata Wąsowska-Pawlik, Europa Nostra board member and director of the International Cultural Centre in Kraków, and Elena Bianchi, Programme Manager of the European Heritage Awards at Europa Nostra, who explains the ins and outs of the prize.And what about the former winners? How has the award made an influence on their projects? We hear from Eugen Vaida, who is now a jury member but whose Ambulance for Momuments project rescues heritage-listed buildings across Romania (2020). Additionally, we hear from Anna Szekely from the Via Transilvanica in Romania (2023), Francesca Moncada from Le Dimore del Quartetto (2019), as well as this year’s winners: Łucja Cieślar and Paulina Adamska from the Serfenta Assocation in Cieszyn (Poland), Marek Gołosz from the Ignacy Historic Mine in Rybnik (Poland), and Caroline Fernolend from the Mihai Eminescu Trust (Romania).Do you have an amazing initiative which fits the bill and you think could win a prize? You can find out more details here.

Coming up in this episode, we go up to Lithuania to find out the activities undertaken in Kaunas following the city’s remarkable success as European Capital of Culture in 2022 and its inscription to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023.During a meeting in Kraków, head of the Heritage Hub Katarzyna Jagodzińska speaks to researcher and architectural historian Vaidas Petrulis from the Kaunas University of Technology.They talk about the specificity of Kaunas’ modernist architecture in terms of its protection and recognition, as well as its importance for the Lithuanian nation during the inter-war period when the “true” Lithuanian capital – Vilnius – was part of Poland.The title of the UNESCO inscription is “Modernist Kaunas: Architecture of Optimism, 1919-1939”. Listen to the interview to find out more about what lies behind the inscription’s title and what this architecture means for the city today.

In our search for the cultural heritage of Ukrainians in Poland we have arrived in Podlasie – a region encompassing the Polish-Belarusian borderland, with the Narew river meandering through its centre and the World Heritage listed Białowieża forest straddling the border.For decades, Ukrainian inhabitants of this land have been struggling with a harmful stereotype that this region – as a national and cultural borderland – is a contact point between Poles and Belarusians. This has seemingly condemned the ethnically Ukrainian population of this area to oblivion. Yet a great many Orthodox inhabitants of the villages and towns between the Bug and the Narew rivers belong to the Ukrainian ethnic area in terms of language, material culture and folklore.The cultural identity of Ukrainians who are still living in the area is strong, but they indicate that it’s fading. People are moving out to other regions or abroad, children don’t use the language of their grandparents any longer in their daily communication, and in the meantime whatever traditional architecture remains is falling apart.However, all is not lost, and it would be skepticism to say that it was too late to keep this heritage alive. The Kraków Heritage Hub’s John Beauchamp together with Katarzyna Jagodzińska are at a local privately-owned open-air museum, Skansen Koźliki, where they meet Jerzy Misiejuk to find the tangible essence of Ukrainian Podlasie.Also in the episode, we meet a number of local activists and researchers connected to the Podlasie Scientific Institute  in Bielsk Podlaski. We hear from journalist Jerzy Gawryluk, the editor-in-chief of local Ukrainian-language newspaper Nad Buhom i Narwoju, local poet Eugenia Gawryluk, teachers Elżbieta Tomczuk from Bielsk Podlaski and Irena Wiszenko from Czeremcha, the home of the Hiłoczka Ukrainian youth song  ensemble. We also meet Maria Ryżyk, head of the Association of Ukrainians in Podlasie and a member of the local council in Bielsk Podlaski.This podcast was produced as part of the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ukrainians in Poland: Mapping and Dissemination” project realised by the Faculty of International and Political Studies at the Jagiellonian University with the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków. The project is led by Dr Olga Kich-Masłej from the Department of Polish-Ukrainian Studies.The funding was provided by the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.

In this edition of Holistic Heritage we are in Romania, where we hike the Via Transilvanica with the trail’s co-founder Ana Szekely.Ana stands behind the success of Via Transilvanica, the longest walking trail in Romania, by many considered one of the most beautiful in the world. Measuring 1,400 kilometres, it crosses seven regions and many differing ethnic communities across the country.In 2023 Via Transilvanica won the European Heritage Award / Europa Nostra Award – the highest recognition for heritage projects awarded jointly by the European Commission and Europa Nostra.A year later, in August 2024, Katarzyna Jagodzińska and John Beauchamp from the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków travel south to Piatra Fântânele, the headquarters of Tășuleasa Social association. They have their walking boots on and are ready to explore Romania’s precious heritage.You can always meet someone interesting on the trail! We bumped into Ewa Chwałko, a seasoned Polish hiker and writer who was walking the route from the end to the beginning in Putna, north of the Tășuleasa base.We would also like to thank the family and staff at La căsuța din pădure gastronomic point for their kind hospitality and amazing meatball soup! Poftă bună!

We are in the Beskid Niski mountain range in southern Poland which is home of the Lemkos, an ethnic group of Carpathian highlanders. They have their own language, which may be classified as a dialect of Rusyn, akin to Ukrainian, and have been here in the Polish Carpathians for generations.The latest Polish census data from 2021 reveals that a fraction over 13,600 people are Lemko or identify as having a mixed Lemko identity. What is interesting, though, is that the majority of Lemkos don’t live here in Lemkovyna. A closer look at the statistics reveals that more Lemkos live in Dolny Śląsk in the south-west, than in Małopolska, which is home to the Beskid Niski.In the episode, the Hub’s John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska travel across green hills and virgin landscapes to visit people who struggle against the odds to save their heritage, build recognition and empower a new generation to continue the development of the customs, traditions, skills and the language.We meet Mychajło Markowicz, founder of the Nowycia Foundation in Nowica which aims to promote Ukrainian culture in the Beskid Niski. The wooden building where foundation is located - known as a chyża - in the past used to be a place for meetings and the exchange of information, a latter-day Whatsapp or social media platform. Nowadays, as Markowicz himself says, the Nowica Foundation wants to fill this gap and be a sort of Lemko internet.Then we have a late breakfast at the agrotourism farm ‘Swystowy Sad’ in Ropki run by Grażyna Betlej-Furman, who tells us about Lemko cuisine, local produce and the way of life in Lemkovyna.In the village of Łosie we speak to Wasyl Szlanta, whose professional life revolved around traditional tar making and who was one of the founders of the Łemkowska Watra festival.In Sękowa we visit the Majsternia Karpat workshop and inn run by Anna Czuchta and Piotr Jasion. We learn about changing Lemko language, local cuisine and herbs.Finally we have a meeting with Julia Doszna, a famous Lemko singer for whom Lemko language and traditional singing is an integral part of her identity.All the people we met during several days of our journey finally come together at Łemkowska Watra (or Lemkivska Vatra), the biggest Lemko culture festival, which is a compulsory event in the yearly calendar, not just for Lemkos, but for the wide community of Ukrainians.This podcast was produced as part of the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ukrainians in Poland: Mapping and Dissemination” project realised by the Faculty of International and Political Studies at the Jagiellonian University with the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków. The project is led by Dr Olga Kich-Masłej from the Department of Polish-Ukrainian Studies.The funding was provided by the Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University.

We are in Przemyśl which plays host to the Narodniy Dim – the National House – which is run by the Association of Ukrainians in Poland. A number of families which were deported from this area in 1947 as part of Operation Vistula have since returned and are cultivating their regional traditions, language and music.We take a look at some of these stories as part of a project which aims to draw attention to Ukrainian cultural heritage and its rekindling after years of neglect.In the episode, the Hub’s John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska are in Przemyśl to meet a number of Ukrainian activists,including:Igor Horków – director of the Narodniy Dim in Przemyśl who underlines that the house open “for everyone”Maria Tucka – a local educator who promotes regional costumes and the ‘Pearls of the Borderland’ ethnographic collectionMaria Mryczko – a local artist who works with papercutting as part of the Narodniy Dim’s activitiesTatiana Czarna-Nakonieczna – a local activist who runs the ‘Krajka’ and ‘Krajeczka’ folk music groupsIn the podcast we also hear from Tatiana Harasym and Aleksandra Steć from Krajka. Daria Pulkovska joins them for the vocal pieces presented in the podcast. Maksym Nakonieczny (Tatiana’s son) also makes an appearance as the frontman of the Hraybery folk ensemble, which also accompanies Krajeczka.This podcast was made as part of the academic research project “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ukrainians in Poland: Mapping and Dissemination”. The project is funded by the Jagiellonian University as part of its Strategic Programme Excellence Initiative.

For this episode we are in Lviv and visiting the Jam Factory Art Center. This new space in an old and run-down suburb of Ukraine’s western city has been in the making for years. Now it has become Lviv’s most fashionable centre for contemporary artists both from Ukraine and beyond, and has the ambition to become the country’s premier exhibition space.Creating such a massive area for visual and performative art in an old industrial space has proven to be a challenge. However, for the Jam Factory team, nothing seems to be impossible, especially when they have the help of founder and Swiss cultural entrepreneur Harald Binder.John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub for Central and Eastern Europe, meet the Jam Factory’s Executive Director Bozhena Pelenska in Lviv. Artur Wabik  from Kraków’s Comics Museum also joins us for this episode.Throughout the episode we’ll be finding out more on the Jam Factory as well as take a tour of this new state-of-the-art centre.

We’re in the centre of Lviv to visit UA Comix – a comic book store, as you might have guessed from the name. But it’s so much more than that. In fact, you could say that comics are now helping the Ukranian war effort against Russia.Bohdan Kordoba is the founder and CEO of UA Comix. Even though it has always published comics and graphic novels, the full-scale invasion by Russia has meant that more and more publications are geared towards Ukrainian language and culture. We also hear from Ruslana Koropatka, Editor-in-Chief of UA Comix, as well as artists Lyudmila Samus and Khrystyna Koropetska.Presented by John Beauchamp and Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków.

Assistance for heritage during times of war has been a leitmotif throughout the Ukraine Heritage Spotlight podcast series. In this episode we look closely at the activities undertaken by non-governmental organisations, including those bringing physical support for heritage institutions endangered by ongoing Russian attacks.Iryna Nikiforova offers us an insight into current heritage matters – organisation, management and networking. Nikiforova is deputy head of the Initiative for St. Andrew’s Passage NGO [Andriyivsko-Peizazhna Initsiatyva] and coordinator of Ukraine Art Aid Center based in Germany. Since March 2022, the organisation has been providing assistance to museums and cultural institutions of Ukraine. We met during her visit to the offices of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków.

December 2022 marked the reopening of the Slovak National Gallery after major reconstruction. A large part of exhibition premises were closed for more than twenty years due to their derelict condition, and construction works took almost seven years.Bratislava has now regained one of its most iconic buildings for art and culture, as well as a meeting place for residents and tourists. The bold socialist modernist structure designed by Vladimir Dedeček in 1977 stands out clearly on the banks of the Danube. It is commonly referred to as the “Overbridge”, an elevated three-storey bridge optically closing the baroque Water Barracks from the street side and forming an inner courtyard.Our guide to the newly opened building of the main Slovak museum is Dr Alexandra Kusá, its general director and a specialist in 20th century art. Through the perspective of this spectacular architecture we look closer at the contemporary capital of Slovakia, asking what still needs to be done in Bratislava and Slovakia in broadly understood heritage?Hosted by John Beauchamp together with Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków.

How has the concept of heritage changed over the decades? We take a look at best practices and approaches to heritage preservation with Professor Jacek Purchla, Vice-President of Europa Nostra. We met at the Heritage Hub in Kraków in June 2024 on the occasion of the announcement of the European Heritage Awards.Hosted by John Beauchamp together with Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub in Kraków.

Physical damage to Ukraine’s cultural heritage is very real. Official figures from UNESCO dated 10 April 2024 reveal verified damage to 351 sites since 24 February 2022, including religious sites, museums and monuments, as well as other heritage sites.For the inaugural episode, I’m in Lviv, Ukraine’s western gateway, where we meet leading cultural figures to learn what is being done to preserve – and save – Ukrainian cultural heritage in light of the continuing conflict with Russia.Lilia Onyshchenko-Shvets is advisor to the Mayor of Lviv on heritage protection. We meet her in her office near the old Arsenal in downtown Lviv. “We were absolutely not prepared for what happened on 22 February,” she says of the outbreak of war. “We simply didn’t think it could happen” she says of the full-scale Russian invasion.In the podcast, we also hear how Vasyl Rozhko from the НеМо: Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab is systematically assessing damage done to Ukrainian heritage, including information which may be used for criminal proceedings against the Russian Federation.Dr. Iryna Sklokina is a Research Fellow at the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv. In 2023, her project – Un/Archiving Post/Industry – won an Europa Nostra heritage award in the category “Citizen Engagement and Awareness Raising”. She explains how the war has raised awareness among Ukrainians of their cultural heritage.In Lviv’s opulent Potocki Palace I meet with Taras Voznyak, director of the Lviv National Art Gallery. He explains the situation of museum collections across the country and what is being done to protect them.We also visit the Ukrainian Catholic University. It’s here where leading Ukrainian historian, Professor Yaroslav Hrytsak explains what’s at stake for the Ukrainian people.

One of the most important activities in heritage research is not just looking at the past, but recording the present for future generations of citizens and scholars. This is exactly what Dr Iryna Sklokina is doing from the Center for Urban History in Lviv. One of the centre’s projects is „Un-archiving Post-industry”, which digitally preserves endangered industrial heritage collections in Ukraine’s East and fostering engagement with this heritage among local communities.Collaborating closely with local archives and heritage practitioners, the project digitised collections at a number of museums in Ukraine, including Mariupol, Pokrovsk and Donetsk. It’s also worth noting that the project won a Citizens’ Engagement prize at the 2023 Europa Nostra Awards.Hosted by John Beauchamp together with Katarzyna Jagodzińska, head of the Europa Nostra Heritage Hub for Central and Eastern Europe in Kraków. Recorded in Lviv, April 2024.