History of creation

During the revolutionary winter of 2013-2014, a group of like-minded people, understanding the historical scale and social significance of events, called for the preservation of unique evidence for the descendants and began collecting work on barricades and educational work in the media space. In January 2014, an initiative Maidan Museum was launched, which in autumn merged with the initiative Museum of Liberty. 

Maidan Museum / Museum of Liberty worked on the concept of the museum, collecting artifacts and evidence, providing preservation, research and promotion of objects and places related to the events of the Maidan. At the various stages of development Maidan Museum received support of the Self-defense of the Maidan, the Maidan Library, the Art Hundred, the Maidan Mail, the Automaidan, the Maidan Press Center and others, as well as the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, the Kyiv City State Administration, the Ivan Honchar Museum, the National Sanctuary Complex Sophia of Kyiv, the Kyiv History Museum, the National Museum of Ukrainian History in the Second World War, Agency for Cultural Strategies, and Ukrainian Committee of ICOM. Yevhen Hlibovytsky, Olexandr Baklanov, and Olesya Ostrovska-Lyuta, the representatives of the analytical company pro.mova, supported the initiative as well. Families of the heroes of the Heavenly Hundred and the victims of the Maidan took part in the process of memorializing the events of the Revolution of Dignity.

The cooperation of museum workers and activists who, by the end of 2013, realized that the mobilization of mass protests had historical and social importance, and that the understanding of freedom as a cultural and social value has a special manifestation in the modern history of the state was an important contribution to the civic resistance during the EuroMaidan. The activists of the group called for the preservation of unique evidence for the descendants and started educational work on barricades and in the media space.

In January 2014, Vasyl Rozhko, Igor Poshyvaylo, Mykola Skyba, Andriy Kotlyarchuk, Tymur Bobrovsky, and Kateryna Chuyeva, with the support by the Self-Defense of the Maidan, and subsequently by the Ukrainian National Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), and the Ukrainian National Committee of the Blue Shield called for founding of Maidan Museum. In addition to the initiators, the first official workgroup responsible for creating the concept of memorialization and museum design of events of the Revolution of Dignity included representatives of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, museum workers and public activists from the National Art Museum of Ukraine and the Ivan Honchar Museum, and independent experts and scholars such as Volodymyr Yermolenko, Mykhaylo Minakov among others.

The draft of the abovementioned concept was the result of the interaction of specialists in the field of museum and monument protection, public activists, art historians, historians and cultural managers. In April-July of 2014, Tymur Bobrovsky, Volodymyr Vyatrovych, Rostyslav Karandeyev, Lydia Karpenko, Alla Kyrydon, Igor Poshyvaylo, Vasyl Rozhko, Kateryna Romanova, Mykola Skyba, Kateryna Chuyeva, and Mykola Yakovin worked on the text of the concept.
 
In 2017, according to the order of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, an expert workgroup which consisted of representatives of the state authorities, the expert community and the public was created to draft the Concept of the National Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred Memorial Complex i.e. the Museum of the Revolution of Dignity. This workgroup includes Oleksandra Baklanova, Strategy and Change Management consultant, Co-Founder of Nestorivska and Univska interdisciplinary expert groups; Tymur Bobrovsky, an archaeologist, a memorial guard, a member of the initiative group Maidan Museum / Museum of Liberty; Anna Bondar, Deputy Director of the Department of Urban Development and Architecture of KCSA; Volodymyr Bondarchuk, Director of the civic organization The Homeland of Heavenly Hundred; Robert van Voren, CEO of the Foundation to Preserve the History of Maidan; Volodymyr Vyatrovych, Chairman of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance; Anastasiya Gaidukevych, Head of the Department of Museums of the Office of Institutional Support of the National Remembrance Policy of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, Secretary of the expert workgroup; Igor Guryk, Chairman of the Board of the Charitable Foundation Maidan of Dignity; Elaine Gurian, a museum expert, Ex-Deputy Director of the Holocaust Memorial Museum and National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC), former Deputy Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute (USA); Sergiy Dyachenko, a museum specialist, an ethnographer, an architect, an expert of a number of EU projects in the field of museum affairs and culture; Oleksandr Zinchenko, a historian, a publicist, Co-Founder of the site Istorychna Pravda, an author and the leader of the project Declassified History on the TV channel UA:Pershyi, a member of the initiative group Maidan Museum / Museum of Liberty; Zуnoviy Mazuryk, a museum expert and Vice President of ICOM Ukraine; Olga Melnyk, Head of the Museum Affairs Department of the Mystetskyi Arsenal National Cultural, Art and Museum Complex; Natalia Musienko, a leading researcher at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine; Vitaliy Nakhmanovych, a leading researcher at the Museum of History of Kyiv, Executive Secretary of the Public Committee for the commemoration of the victims of Babyn Yar; Linda Norris, a museum expert, Director of Global Networks Programs at the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (USA); Vladyslav Osmak, a cultural historian, a member of the Council of Public Experts of the Territory of Dignity Competition; Vladyslav Pioro, a museum expert, Head of the Board of the civic organization Ukrainian Center for the Development of Museum Affairs; Igor Poshyvaylo, Executive Director of the National Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred Memorial Complex i.e. the Museum of the Revolution of Dignity, Chairman of the Board of Maidan Museum, a member of the ICOM Committee for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage under Extraordinary Conditions, Chairman of the expert workgroup; Vasyl Rozhko, Member of the Board of the civic organization Maidan Museum, Chairman of the Museum Council of Ukraine at the Ministry of Culture; Kateryna Romanova, Senior Researcher at the Kyiv History Museum; Mykola Skyba, Director of the civic organization Agency of Cultural Strategies, an expert in the field of education at the Ukrainian Institute of the Future; Kateryna Chuyeva, Deputy Director General of the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts of, a member of the International Committee of the ICOM Memorial Museums for the Commemoration of Victims of State Crimes (ICMEMO).