“War and Dreams”– Children’s Drawings from Ukraine

The students are from the small town of Kozelets, 80 kilometres north of Kyiv, and Ivano-Frankiwsk in western Ukraine. When they learnt about their teachers’ work trip abroad, they gave them drawings to take with them to the EUSTORY network conference.

The works were created during art classes as well as history lessons. They move between peaceful dream worlds and the reality of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Ukrainian national symbols such as wheat ears and sunflowers are linked to hopes and visions of the future.

Oleksandra draws the airplane “Mrija” (translated as dream), once the largest jumbo jets in the world, in steep upward flight. She thus gives a new life to an aircraft that was fully destroyed by Russian attacks on Kyiv-Hostomel Airport in February 2022.

Everyday life in the schools in Kozelets and Ivano-Frankivsk is strongly affected by the war.

History teacher Nataliya S. recounts how lessons are often interrupted by air raids. However, the children are less worried about themselves than about the safety of their relatives. After all, many children came to her school after they had fled from war zones and areas occupied by Russia.

Some of the children’s drawings were created in Nataliya S.’s history class while exploring the topic “human rights”. The students linked the abstract topic with the current war situation in their own country. In the resulting drawings, quotes from the 1996 report on the effects of armed conflicts on children are juxtaposed with images of war material and destroyed infrastructure.

While Nataliya S.’s school is far from the front lines, Iryna K.’s school is in a town towards which Russian troop advanced in spring 2022. Classroom teaching had to be suspended for security reasons. The children were only able to return to school in January 2024, when a bomb shelter was opened. Since then, the teaching staff had to continuously undergo training: now, first aid for war injuries and safe behaviour around land mines form part of the curriculum.

The drawings were presented from April to June as a pop-up exhibition on the premises of Körber-Stiftung to honour the work of the children and the long-standing Ukrainian partners of Körber-Stiftung.

Ukraine is a founding member of EUSTORY. Member organisation Nova Doba, the All-Ukrainian Association of Teachers of History, Civic Education and Social Studies, has been organising successful history competitions since 1997. Since 2017, the competition has been organised as part of a cooperation project with Körber-Stiftung and DVV International and funded by the German Federal Foreign Office.

The Ukrainian history competition has continued even after the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine on 24 February 2022. At the beginning of June of this year, the winning entries from the current competition round were honoured at a digital awards ceremony. Despite war and flight, more than 600 children and teenagers took part.

With financial support from Körber-Stiftung, Nova Doba has been organising additional educational programmes for internally displaced persons, youth media seminars and training for teachers from areas affected by occupation and combat since 2022.