Archive of Silent Loss.
German Church Architecture in Southern Ukraine in the Shadow of War (Mykolaiv, Odessa, and Kherson)
Foreword to the Digital Exhibition
This digital exhibition brings together eight striking oil paintings by a prominent Ukrainian artist who has created an artistic tribute to the endangered German churches in southern Ukraine on the Black Sea. In his paintings, Professor Mykola Dmitrukh recalls his childhood amidst a unique landscape that for centuries was shaped by cultural exchange, by living in harmony with nature, but also by influences that reached the country across the Black Sea.
The painter depicts the churches not only as stone structures set in the landscape, but also as testaments to memory, faith, and cultural continuity. Today, they stand in the shadow of a war that is shaking their walls and wounding their surroundings. Like the people, many places of worship are experiencing the war firsthand and are themselves falling victim to Russian missile attacks.
The images do not depict abstract destruction, but rather impressions of specific places where history, hope, and human life have been intertwined for centuries. Thus, the old buildings and their bricks become symbols of both permanence and vulnerability.
Yet every crack in the masonry serves as a reminder that, just like people, culture and memory are also under threat — all the more so because these churches, as silent witnesses to the past, are being struck and destroyed by missiles launched from Russia. The German churches in Ukraine tell the story of centuries of shared history — of settlement, work, faith, and cultural exchange. They preserve traces of German cultural heritage, which is deeply interwoven with the history of southern Ukraine. That is why the violence of war affects not only buildings, but also the cultural and intellectual memory of Ukraine — and indeed, of all of Europe. Russia’s war is not only a military and imperial war, but also a war against civilization, identity, and culture.
The oil paintings capture a moment in which the past and the present collide painfully. Between light and shadow, silent testimonies of loss, resilience, and dignity emerge; vivid hues symbolize danger, wounding, and an awareness of the transience of time, space, and human existence.
The churches (still) appear as stone guardians of memory that endure despite all the wounds they have suffered. Culture, however, cannot be taken for granted; it must be protected and preserved because it can help people in their search for the good, the true, and the beautiful. The images invite us to view them not only as works of art, but also as an expression of a history that is under threat.
The churches survived World War I, the Russian Civil War, and World War II, as well as the neglect and misuse they endured during the Soviet era; how will they — literally — with“stand” Russia’s war against Ukraine? Will they remain building blocks for the future?
Katrin Boeckh
I. Artistic Reflection – Visualizing the Losses
The Role of Art in Archiving Memory
This virtual archive goes beyond mere scholarly documentation by combining historical photographic material and current data on the losses with Mykola Dmitrukh’s contemporary artistic interpretation.
Media Dialogue
The images serve not only as a visual supplement but as a central element in conveying emotion.
Each of Dmitrukh’s works establishes a dialogue between the past and the present. While the historical photographs show the architecture in its heyday, the drawings focus on its current state — whether endangered or already destroyed.
The Image as a Testament to Vulnerability
The deliberately chosen technique of the image (as opposed to photography) highlights the human dimension of the loss:
Reduction to the essential: The image isolates the architectural object from the bustle of everyday life and focuses the gaze on its structure and its wounds.
Visualization of the absent: Dmitrukh’s works visualize not only the building’s current state (damage, decay) but also the absence of the original community and the emptiness left behind by displacement (1941/1944) and war (2022 onwards). They become "tombstones of memory," bearing witness to destruction.
An appeal to urgency: In contrast to clinical data regarding damage, the images evoke an emotional response and underscore the urgency of protecting the remaining cultural heritage and archiving the losses before the memory of them fades.
Through the entirety of his work, Mykola Dmitrukh creates a “visual archive of loss” that powerfully portrays the complexity and tragedy of German settler culture in the context of the war.
Image credits:
All graphic works are originals by Mykola Dmitrukh, authenticated by his signature "Дмітрух" on the pieces.
We extend our sincere thanks to Uliana Kovalchuk / /Уляна Ковальчук for photographing the original works.
II. Mykola Dmіtrukh. The Painter and His Poetry
„With brush and pen, I write
about the steppe where I grew up“.
The Historic German Settlement and the Current Threat to Their Heritage
Southern Ukraine — characterized by the vastness of the steppe and defined by the fertile soils of the Black Sea region — was the setting for a significant history of German-Mennonite settlement beginning in the second half of the 18th century. This era marked a turning point in the foreign policy of the Russian Empire and opened the region to targeted colonization programs. This migration created a unique cultural landscape along the rivers and limans: colonies such as Blumenfeld (now Krasnopillia) became microcosms where the built environment — solid glazed-stone houses, artesian wells, and Neo-Gothic churches — imparted a distinctively Western character to the Eurasian landscape.
The Architecture of Memory as a “Fortress”
The painter Mykola Dmіtrukh, born in 1954 in the former German colony of Blumenfeld (Mykolaiv region), describes these structures as “music in stone” and as a “visual signature” of his homeland. Dmіtrukh’s own family history reflects the violence of the upheavals of the 20th century — deported from the Polish Chełm region to the Ukrainian SSR in 1945 and ultimately settled in the former colony. For him, the home he knew became a place of refuge: “I always wanted to be here, behind the wall in my courtyard, like in a fortress.”
This sense of home, rooted in the stone relics of a foreign yet adopted culture, forms the emotional foundation of the works presented here. The painter recalls his childhood, spent amidst the quiet yet melancholic splendor of this architecture: the old school beside the church and the concrete cemetery slabs that have since vanished. Dmitrukh views the village where he grew up as an “open-air ethnographic museum” and the colony’s stone relics — such as the majestic church — as “landmark buildings,” or a “calling card” visible from afar.
Dmitrukh’s mother was also a painter. An exhibition marking her 100th birthday was organized in May 2026 in Ternopil, where he lives. The media portal Teren reported on it in detail [accessed June 9, 2026]:
- https://teren.in.ua/news/vona-ne-shkoduvala-dlya-mene-bilih-stin-vidomiy-hudozhnik-z-ternopolya-vidkriv-vistavku-prisvyachenu-storichchyu-materi-foto-video_415439.html
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTvWVA-RrXo
An exhibition featuring paintings by the Dmitrukh artist family opened in Ternopil in 2026. Find out more here: https://teren.in.ua/news/u-ternopoli-vidkrili-rodinnu-vistavku-kartin-troh-mitciv-video_416037.html
"Noise" as Destruction and Displacement
This fragile cultural memory has been under massive threat since February 24, 2022. The exhibition "Archive of Silent Loss. German Church Architecture in Southern Ukraine in the Shadow of War" aims to document the systematic and accidental losses of German cultural heritage in the war zone of southern Ukraine.
Mykola Dmitrukh’s artistic method serves not merely to illustrate this loss but also to interpret it. His works — which employ an abstraction and reduction of historical buildings to geometric forms — address the “noise” (“shum”) that overlays these traces.
The term "Schum" (noise) in this context is to be understood in two ways:
- as external noise: the physical violence of war, the shelling, and the ruin that destroys the built environment,
- as internal noise: the psychological tension, fear, and alienation that seek to displace cultural memory and sever the connection to the past.
By distilling forms to their essence, Dmitrukh’s works compel the viewer to look past the noise, seek out fading memories, and re-evaluate the significance of these cultural anchor points within the landscape of war. Archiving these losses thus serves as an active defense against the noise that threatens to neutralize historical heritage.
III. Artistic Reflection: Poetry from the Steppe
by Mykola Dmytrukh
Where did you rest,
my first, my countryman?
Blumenfeld
A certain melancholy could be felt in the church and the solid stone houses of the prosperous farmsteads — structures often adorned with glazed tiles and decorative details. Or was it just my impression?
Everything here was familiar and close to me, for I was born and raised here, having spent my best years amidst a large family.
And although there were no trolleybuses or trams, no zoo or circus — and ice was delivered only occasionally in summer — I loved my village above all else; I could not have existed without it for a single day.
Back then, the village resembled an open-air ethnographic museum where one could hear dialects from various lands; for displaced persons had settled in this devastated territory, opening up a region that was foreign and previously unknown to them — yet one that became home to those born there.
My family comes from the Chełm region (in present-day Poland, the eastern part). In 1945, the family was deported to the Ukrainian SSR; subsequently, there were two further relocations within the Ukrainian SSR, the last being to the Mykolaiv region — specifically to the village of Krasnopillia (known as the German colony of Blumenfeld until 1944).
It was there that I was born in 1954 and spent my first 16 years — my best ones. That is where I learned to walk and speak, and where I began to paint…
I was also deeply drawn to the ancient relics — the massive boulders that dotted the landscape. They seemed like living beings to me, rooted in the earth or lapped by the waters of the Tylihul Liman, which lay just seven kilometers away, with the Black Sea about twenty-five kilometers distant.
A blessed land: sticky black soil, fields of wheat, melons, and vineyards; the scent of wormwood and bread; the honest, warm sun; and the taste of water from the "Sweet Well" (until the 1950s, this was the only well in the entire village yielding fresh water; all the others produced salt water). I felt as though I were one of those stones on the steppe — old, moss-covered, and rooted there since time immemorial — destined to remain forever, for I knew no other land back then.
Everything here was familiar to me; back then, I didn’t want to go to a foreign land — I always wanted to be right here, behind the wall in my courtyard, as if in a fortress. I spent my early school years at the old German school opposite the church. During breaks, the children would often run to the church and climb the spiral staircase to show off from the window to their peers — to demonstrate, in a way, just who we were...
Yes, it was a landmark building — a calling card visible from everywhere because it stood on a rise in the middle of the village; the cemetery stood even higher up. I remember the concrete slabs on the graves, the relief crosses, as well as the metal crosses and fences. The cemetery is gone now.
I remember the church, which back then was covered in sheet metal that had already rusted. There was no steeple at the time, so it appeared squat and heavy... I always loved looking at it; it seemed somehow mysterious yet alluring — majestic amidst the stone houses of its former wealthy owners, their farmyards, wells, the “Byseni” (cisterns) for collecting rainwater, and the rough-stone sidewalks lining the plastered walls. Yet, beneath this grandeur, a hidden sadness lurked in every structure — including the church, which was visible from far outside the village; it seemed to watch you when you were away, waiting for you, missing you. It is the landmark of the German colony; without it, the settlement would be featureless — it provides the distinctive accent, a piece of music captured in stone.
It has been more than half a century since I last lived in my hometown of Krasnopillia, yet my thoughts are always there; I dream of it, and I love and miss the steppe — I paint it and write about it — for it was there that I spent the best years of my childhood and youth.
Nestled against the embankment lay a slumbering pond, shrouded in thick fog pierced by the church’s spire. Twilight is falling…
My village rises up in ruins.
Only the walls of the church cry out to the heavens.
I still remember you,
And do you still remember me, when I was small? …
Моє село руїною встає.
Лиш стіни Кірхи
До небес волають.
Я пам’ятаю ще тебе,
А ти мене малим ще пам’ятаєш?...