UNESCO includes Ukrainian borshch in intangible cultural heritage list

UNESCO included Ukrainian borshch in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which requires immediate protection.

The Minister of Culture and Information Policy Oleksandr Tkachenko announced this on Telegram.

"Today, July 1, at the 5th extraordinary meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, at the request of the MCIP, the organization added the element 'Culture of making Ukrainian borshch' to the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, which requires immediate protection.

The battle for borshch started even before the war. No matter how often Zakharova [russian foreign ministry's spokeswoman, ed.] says that 'cookery books were banned, and the recipe of the dish was kept secret and forbidden to cook' and in general, our borshch is a 'manifestation of extremism and Nazism,' this 'manifestation of extremism' is now officially Ukrainian, and officially under protection UNESCO.

We will share borshch and its recipes with all civilized countries and the uncivilized, too, for them to have at least something tasty and Ukrainian. But remember and be sure: we have won in the war for borshch, and we will win this war," Tkachenko said.

The minister thanked Yevhen Klopotenko, Maryna Sobotiuk, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, and the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to UNESCO.

Earlier, the media reported that on July 1, UNESCO might add borshch to the intangible cultural heritage list in need of urgent protection. First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Emine Dzaparova announced this on Facebook.

According to her, in March of last year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine submitted a dossier to UNESCO to include the Ukrainian element "Culture of Ukrainian Borshch" in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Under UNESCO rules, they included the nomination in the queue for consideration in 2023.

"The war started by russia against Ukraine, according to the Organization, created a threat to this object of cultural heritage, and a decision was made to consider the Ukrainian nomination to include the element in another list, UNESCO's List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Protection," she said.

The minister said it was an unprecedented practice for UNESCO when a nomination included in the queue of Representative List was considered urgently and included in another list of the organization.

Also, the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to UNESCO played a vital role in this process: it provided the necessary support for the nomination dossier, its promotion, and support from other countries and also initiated the acceleration of the review.

"The review of the Ukrainian dossier will take place on July 1 in Paris during an extraordinary meeting of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Committee, at which the organization should make the final decision," the minister emphasized.

She noted that it would be a truly historic event for Ukraine.

"It means recognizing the uniqueness and identity of the Ukrainian element of intangible cultural heritage, and, at the same time, recognizing its universal value and significance for world culture," she added.

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