What actually the State List of Historical and Cultural Values gives to Belarusan Heritage Sites?

The Belarus Committee of ICOMOS announces the collection of cases on the effectiveness of the State List of Historical and Cultural Values as a tool of the safeguarding the cultural monuments.

Belarusan media regularly “boil over” the news of the destruction or neglect of monuments important to our culture. Cultural heritage experts, businessmen, activists, and many others are outraged by the actions or inaction of government officials. It is generally accepted to include a building in the State List as the first and the most important step in its rescue. But what happens next? And does it sometimes happen that, in practice, the inclusion of a monument in the State List does not always guarantee its preservation, while many other non-included monuments acquire a new life, primarily through the efforts of individuals or communities?

The Belarus Committee of ICOMOS invites you to look more closely at the whole picture of such heterogeneous situations and collectively analyze the effectiveness of the State List as the first cultural policy instrument in the preservation of heritage.

The organization is looking for cases that illustrate the following scenarios:

• If the valuable heritage site was threatened with deterioration and its inclusion in the State list of historical and cultural values ​​really contributed to its preservation and restoration, the site was put into functioning;
• If an object with a given status of historical and cultural value has been abandoned and neglected for years, the investor is not there or after several attempts to start work the investor refuses to continue;
• If the valuable heritage object does not have the status of historical and cultural value, however, its restoration takes place according to the rules and methods with respect its authentic elements and the role in history;
• If the civic activity organized around a valuable heritage object for the purpose of its preservation and revitalization has really promoted its restoration and commissioning, whether it was entered in the State List or not.

You can submit your case for consideration by June 10, 2020 (inclusive) by sending an email to the box: [email protected].

The description should include:

• the name of the object/site, its location;
• its short history (100-200 words);
• contacts of the person or organization from which we can learn more.

The collected cases will be presented during the Scientific Conference “The Right to Heritage and the State List of Historical and Cultural Property: Challenges and Decisions” to be held on June 19-20, 2020.

The event organizers seek to analyze illustrations of the effectiveness or inefficiency of a such tool as the State List, in a dialogue with the responsible authorities. And the final analytical document, compiled from the collected case studies, will allow experts (among whom may be you) to outline the next steps in advocating for necessary changes to the legal regulation of the work with heritage.

Information

“Right to Heritage” a series of joint events of the Belarus Committee of ICOMOS and the International NGO EuroBelarus, dedicated to the development of relevant and effective heritage governance practices of professional, local and other communities.

The first event — already in the context of COVID-19 pandemic — was an online seminar on “Participatory Governance of Cultural Heritage: Searching for an Effective Model for Belarus”, where 18 community and cultural activists discussed ways to develop participatory practices for diverse communities. A conference, lectures and a round table with foreign experts in the field of heritage are expected next.