College of Staten Island Professor of History Dr. Susan Smith-Peter is presenting a powerful look into the resilience of the Ukranian people in wartime with a special Poster Opening for Ukraine gallery on display at CSI’s Center for the Arts.
Dr. Smith-Peter worked with a World War II Museum in Kyiv, Ukraine, to create the collection, collaborating with its museum Director Yuriy Savchuk. According to The New York Times, Savchuk and his colleagues “meticulously documented what they saw (during the Russian invasion of Ukraine), taking more than 3,000 photographs. And they came away with some of the abandoned traces of the Russian invasion: the diary of a commander; a book that Russian troops had carried, titled No One Judges the Winners; a parachute soldier’s map showing targets on Kyiv’s left bank; and the ATM cards and passports of dead Russian fighters.”
Dr. Smith-Peter is very pround of the work, stating “As a historian of Russia, I’ve felt a need to stand with Ukraine and to show the high stakes of the war in Ukraine and why we need to support their struggle. Working with the World War Two Museum in Kyiv, a leading Ukrainian museum, I brought their exhibit on the resilience of the Ukrainian people during the war to New York. In the first days of the invasion, only a few employees stayed at the museum in Kyiv to defend it and to document the battle for Kyiv. I feel proud to be able to bring this story to New Yorkers.”
The Poster Gallery in 1P chronicles the pieces in the museum, and Dr. Smith-Peter will talk about the specific posters and its images in her talk, which will take place in the 1P Lecture Hall at 5:30pm on Thursday, November 16. The event is free and open to the public, and the exhibit will be on display in the upper atrium concourse of the Center for the Arts until the end of the semester.
