The Živa after Živa event will connect the members of the Forum of Slavic Cultures delegation at the VIII St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum and other professionals in the field of museology. The meeting will summarize the results of this year’s international museum Živa Award and discuss plans for further cooperation. The event will include the Živa-2019 Award handing to the winners.
The Živa Award for the best Slavic Museum has been established in 2012 on the initiative of an expert project group from the member countries of the Forum of Slavic Cultures. The Forum of Slavic Cultures is an international foundation, a non-profit and non-government organization, officially founded in 2004.
The Živa Award aims at identyfing, encouraging, rewarding and promoting experiments, projects, practices in the museum sector within the specific cultural and geographical framework of the European countries of Slavic culture recognizing the peculiarities and specific values of the Slavic world with its story, its traditions, its heritage, its common and sometimes contradictory roots as well as its problems. It is an Award which at the same time collect interesting experiences and make possible to share them at the transnational level. It encourages competition in order to increase the number of museums which can do better more than simply to be the best ones and it is based on the idea that knowledge and sharing of experiences is essential for determining a more influential role of museums in our societies.
25 museums from 11 Slavic countries entered this year’s competition for the Živa Award for the best Slavic museum and heritage site. At the sixth ceremony in Bar in Montenegro (previous ones took place in Skopje, St. Petersburg, Zadar, Bled and Prague) the Živa Award for the best Slavic museum 2019 was bestowed to the State Museum of Political History of Russia from St. Petersburg. For the second time the jury consisting of 13 museum experts from Slavic countries and the European Museum Academy also selected the winner of the Živa Award for the best Slavic heritage site. It was bestowed to the Memorial Complex "Brest Hero-Fortress" from Brest in Belarus. In addition to the main award, a special recognition for leadership was given to the Gallery of Matica Srpska (Novi Sad, Serbia); the winner of the recognition for attention to visitors and openness was International Centre of Graphic Arts (Ljubljana, Slovenia); the Polish Song Museum in Opole (Opole, Poland) received the special recognition for creativity; the War Childhood Museum (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) for storytelling; and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague (Prague, Czech Republic) for good use of resources. The Jury also decided to handed the Honourable Mention to Tsaritsyno — State Historical, Architectural, Art and Landscape Museum — Reserve (Moscow, Russian Federation).
The event will also include reception for the Forum of Slavic Cultures delegation, the museum sightseeing tour.
