Restoration in Wartime: Historic Stained Glass Re-installed in Kyiv

It seems fitting at Easter-time to be able to highlight and celebrate the resurrection of some of Ukraine’s war-damaged stained glass heritage courtesy of one of its champions, London-based Ukranian-born glass artist Oksana Kondratyeva.

Kondratyeva holds a PhD in theory of architecture and has been a leading scholar specialising on Ukraine’s stained glass and dalle-de-verre, and the interplay between architectural glass art, architecture and history.

She writes,  “Three out of five damaged stained glass windows at the National Shevchenko Kyiv University have been restored and re-installed despite frequent continued airstrikes on the capital.

The series of 20th-century modernist stained glass windows, featured in The Journal of Stained Glass, VOL XLVI (2022), pp. 10-12, were severely damaged by a Russian missile attack on New Year’s Eve 2022.

Thanks to the University’s Youth Council at the Institute of Biology and Medicine, as well as an active fundraising campaign, the restoration project has received fruitful development. The stained glass windows were restored by Ukrainian artists Larysa Pisha, Iryna Mirosh, and craftsman Anatoliy Smuchok. Re-installing the restored windows in situ has been a way to defy a historical pattern of cultural losses during war.

Ukraine’s cultural heritage continues to be a target of Russian bombardment, as evidenced by the recent destruction of the historic stained glass in Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Kyiv (including the West Rose window, featured in The Journal of Stained Glass, VOL XL (2016), p. 30) and numerous stained glass windows in Odesa. Ukraine’s culture remains a battlefield and as such deserves to be accorded far more international attention and support than it has hitherto received.”

Image credits: Kristina Nerpii