The Most Documented War 2025: Results of the Three-Day Symposium

From May 22 to 24, 2025, Lviv hosted the annual Symposium for Documentation and Archiving Initiatives, The Most Documented War: Enacting Archives. Now in its third year, the event brought together Ukrainian and international academics, journalists, activists and artists to explore the opportunities and challenges of preserving and using war-related documentation. This year’s symposium focused on enacting archives.

The event was organized by the Center for Urban History, Documenting Ukraine / IWM, INDEX: Institute for Documentation and Exchange and the Research Center Ukraine / Max Weber Foundation. The program featured panel discussions, Q&A sessions, project presentations, workshops, documentary film screenings, and a theatre performance. The symposium brought together participants from all over Ukraine, as well as internationally: from Austria, the Czech Republic, Georgia, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Syria, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The first two days featured panel discussions about various approaches to understanding archives, the ways of opening, their sustainability and the potential for solidarity that archives offer. Also, during all three days, documentarians had the opportunity to present their projects, share their experiences and network. On the third day, participants took part in a series of professional workshops. Topics included interview processing, longitudinal research, crafting contemporary narratives based on archival data, OSINT tools and documenting the destruction of cultural heritage. Events were held across several venues: the Center for Urban History, Dim Zvuku (House of Sound), the Lviv Culture Hub and the Mystetska Biblioteka (Municipal Art Library).

Participants attended The Traveler’s Playlist, a play by Anastasia Kosodii, and watched Songs of War, a documentary musical by Sashko Protyah, at the Lesia Ukrainka Theater. After the screening, they joined a discussion on the role of documentary cinema today.

‍Partners:

• LivArch / Herder Institute, Marburg

• CERCEC / EHESS, Paris

• Virtual Ukraine Institute for Advanced Study (VUIAS), Berlin

• Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFiS PAN), Warsaw

• Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C2DH), Luxembourg