Developing data management tools to identify the colonial impact on monuments in the Sumy region of Ukraine

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Ukraine experienced expansionism by multiple foreign groups and states throughout its history. However, Russian colonization of the 18th and 19th centuries and Soviet colonization of 1921–1991 had the most significant impact on Ukrainian national state formation and cultural identification through organized Russian supremacy, systemic totalitarian ideology, and methodical Ukrainian language suppression in public spaces. This paper focuses on developing data management tools to identify the representation of Russian colonial impact in Ukrainian public art through analysis of Ukrainian monuments included in the State Monuments’ Rosters for the Sumy region, a territory bordering Russia. The study utilizes digital data collection apparatus and data analysis to evaluate the distribution of monuments as the primary descriptive research technique. A Monument Digital Identification Card was created to indicate that the Russian colonial impact in the Sumy region, represented in monuments through identified criteria such as epoch, political narratives, personalities, and texts’ language, is higher than Ukrainian statehood narratives. The developed data management tools compare the degree of colonial impact in public art objects installed and included in the State Monuments’ Rosters before 1991 and after Ukraine gained independence. An increase in totalitarian propaganda in 1921–1991 directly impacted the number and narratives of monuments, with 94.9% reflecting colonial narratives and only 5.1% representing national identity. At the same time, no increase in Ukrainian national narratives has been identified since Ukrainian independence in 1991. The research findings confirm the need for state regulatory reforms and regional authorities’ amendments to achieve historical justice.

Acknowledgment
This research is financially supported by the Ukrainian Scientific Research Foundation within the framework of the project “Digital archiving of monuments as objects of public memorialization for the preservation of the cultural heritage of Ukraine.”

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    • Figure 1. Data accumulation model
    • Table 1. Monument digital identification card
    • Table 2. Quantitative representation by periods of monument installation correlated to the political narrative
    • Table 3. Culture of war, including victims
    • Table 4. Monumentalized personalities and groups representing colonial narratives
    • Table 5. Monumentalized personalities and groups representing Ukrainian national narratives
    • Table 6. Technical objects representing narratives of Russian colonialism
    • Table 7. Percentage of political narratives out of the total 839 monuments
    • Conceptualization
      Rymma Mylenkova, Larysa Otroshchenko
    • Data curation
      Rymma Mylenkova, Larysa Otroshchenko, Alla Ziakun
    • Formal Analysis
      Rymma Mylenkova, Larysa Otroshchenko, Tetiana Povalii
    • Investigation
      Rymma Mylenkova, Larysa Otroshchenko, Olha Boiko, Alla Ziakun, Daria Medvedovska
    • Methodology
      Rymma Mylenkova, Larysa Otroshchenko, Alla Ziakun
    • Project administration
      Rymma Mylenkova
    • Supervision
      Rymma Mylenkova
    • Writing – original draft
      Rymma Mylenkova, Larysa Otroshchenko
    • Writing – review & editing
      Rymma Mylenkova, Larysa Otroshchenko, Tetiana Povalii
    • Funding acquisition
      Tetiana Povalii, Olha Boiko
    • Resources
      Tetiana Povalii, Daria Medvedovska
    • Validation
      Tetiana Povalii, Olha Boiko
    • Visualization
      Tetiana Povalii, Olha Boiko, Daria Medvedovska
    • Software
      Alla Ziakun, Daria Medvedovska