After the Euromaidan revolution, Ukrainian photographers united to create a photo project to remember the events of 2013-2014 which changed Ukraine’s course of history. Titled HUMAN FACTOR. LAST EDITION, it showcases the ordinary Ukrainians who took part in the protests in Kyiv. Many heroically withstood the riot police attacks on the camp of the protesters. Some fell in the uneven battle and are remembered as heroes.
On the seventh anniversary of Euromaidan’s victory, HUMAN FACTOR. LAST EDITION is making more of these historical images available online, many for the first time. The first dispatch was dedicated to individual faces of the Revolution. This one is dedicated to the collective action without which Euromaidan would not have succeeded.
Each anniversary of the Euromaidan revolution is like an open question. What did it achieve?
Each anniversary of the Euromaidan revolution is like an open wound. Are we making sure that the heroes of the Heaven’s Hundred did not die in vain?
Each anniversary of the Euromaidan revolution is like a riddle. How did it manage to win, despite the odds?
Yet here we are, seven years after the revolution won, looking back into our memories to grasp why each night, it was a matter of life or death that Maidan would withstand the attacks of the riot police.
Something very important brought hundreds of thousands to the streets over three months. It was for that something that over a hundred met their end, failed by their wooden shields. Dignity? Self-determination? Then, that something was the most important thing in the world.
The camp is no longer there, and many participants of the protests are no longer alive. But their feelings — and the very important something that they sought in Euromaidan – forever live on the internet. Thanks to the witnesses of the events, the photographers.
Some of the authors of the exposition are no longer alive. Viktor Hurniak (October 2014) and Serhiy Nikolaiev (February 2015) were killed on the front in Donbas.
These photos were shown in many cities of Ukraine, as well as in Germany, France, Luxembourg, Poland.
