Goodbye, Pushkin! Hello, Lenin! Ukraine and Russia’s War of Monuments

BBC News Russian had been investigating how the Soviet era monuments were demolished in Ukraine, and now, they are resurfacing in the areas occupied by Russia.

By Anastasia Golubeva

Lenin’s bust in the exclusion zone in Chernobyl. © Getty Images

After the 2014 Maidan revolution, monuments to Lenin and other communist figures were demolished, but this time around it is monuments to Russian cultural figures – poets and writers like Aleksander Pushkin and Maxim Gorky – that are removed. On the other hand, in Europe, there is an increasing debate over whether to demolish monuments to Soviet soldiers erected after the Second World War.

BBC News Russian examines the symbolism and significance of the “war of monuments”.

“Pushkin has fallen”

In late March, a bust of the famous Russian poet Aleksander Pushkin in the Transcarpathian city of Mukachevo was painted in the colours of the Ukrainian flag. A week later, on 7 April, the bust was gone completely.

“Mukachevo is disposing of its Russian-Imperial past. This is done in support of de-Russification and in connection with Russian military aggression against Ukraine,” claimed the city authorities. This monument was one of the first to be demolished by Ukraine after the start of the Russian invasion.

After the fall of the Mukachevo Pushkin, three more monuments to the poet were removed in cities in western Ukraine. “Pushkin had no relation to Ternopil, like most other Russian writers, composers, and others. Having seen all the atrocities committed by Russia, there is no more place here for Russian and Soviet monuments,” wrote Serhiy Nadal, mayor of Ternopil; one of the first Ukrainian cities in which a monument to Pushkin was demolished in early April.

In Ukraine, monuments bearing Soviet symbolism continued to be demolished: those to Soviet soldiers, military leaders, and Communist Party figures. In addition to monuments, commemorative Soviet tanks and planes were removed from the squares of Ukrainian cities, and the remaining Soviet symbols – the hammer, sickle, and Red Army stars were removed from buildings and memorials.

Many Soviet monuments, demolished since the beginning of the war, were supposed to have been removed during the period of Ukrainian “decommunization” after the 2014 Maidan, but a definitive decision had only taken recently. Indeed, the discussion surrounding the demolition of the monument to Soviet policemen in the city of Nizhyn in the Chernihiv region has been ongoing for a decade. The monument was demolished at the start of May this year.

In total, according to the BBC, during the war ten monuments to Pushkin and six to [famous Russian writer] Maxim Gorky have been demolished, among other monuments to [Imperial Russian military] commander Alexander Suvorov, [13th century prince of Novgorod] Alexander Nevsky, and grenadiers from the war of 1812. All other demolished monuments pertain to symbols of the Soviet era. Nevertheless, greater media attention is paid to the demolition of monuments to Russian writers.

“When national of ethno-cultural identity surges, the question ‘why [does Pushkin stand here]?’ naturally arises. It is possible to treat Pushkin’s presence in Ukraine with generosity, provided that the friendship between the countries is continued and strengthened. But when that friendship is treated with such vile disrespect as the complete denial of your neighbour’s subjectivity? Then, this neighbour may ask why Pushkin, a symbol of national romanticism in the very country that attacked us, stands here?” – comments the cultural analyst, Jan Levchenko.

“The demolition of monuments is a symbolic victory”

As noted by the British historian Eric Hobsbawm, the tradition of the mass erection of monuments to figures, both past and present, originated in the 19th century in France and Germany. Hobsbawm refers to the erection of monuments as a facet of the state “invention of traditions” – such monumental figures became a symbolic of the interpretation of national history.

“Monuments are usually needed to reinforce a symbolic system whereby people see how the world works and who is or is not worthy of commemoration and gratitude, – says Professor of history at the European University in Saint Petersburg, Ivan Kurilla, – in 1918, Lenin’s [Bolshevik] government decreed that it was essential to demolish monuments to monarchs and replace them with those to revolutionaries. Each new regime tries to leave symbolic marks on the space in which the people live.”

The first monuments to Lenin were removed from western regions of Ukraine immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As was the case in other post-Soviet countries. After the Maidan, over 1,300 monuments to Lenin were demolished as part of “decommunization” laws adopted in Ukraine in 2015, which consolidated the policy of combatting the communist past: a ban on communist parties, the renaming of toponyms and, among other things, the demolition of monuments to Soviet figures.

“Those who erect monuments and those who demolish them, attribute to it a meaning, which is not always consistent, - says Ivan Kurilla, – Monuments to Lenin are perceived by some, most likely, as a memorial to communism, revolution, leftist ideas; and by others as a representative of Russo-Soviet Imperialism. As such, what is demolished is not a representative of the communist idea, but one of Russia and the Empire – the Russian Empire, the Soviet Empire and modern Russia in some sense.”

Jan Levchenko argues that the monument does not carry any memory or function itself – it is all a matter of what cultural value is attributed to it. According to the cultural analyst, from the beginning of the Stalin regime, the Russian Empire was “revived, although under red banners,” and at the same time the “language of a hierarchical relationship” returned, with Russian culture at the heart.

Therefore, the Soviet regime initiated the mass erection of monuments to Russian cultural icons across the land: “Pushkin never travelled to Ukraine, but his monuments in Uzhhorod and Ternopil appeared automatically during the Soviet years, - says Levchenko. – Pushkin to us was everything, and the USSR privatised him, and so materialised monuments to him. This stemmed from a lack of reflection.”

Thus, the “demolition of monuments is a symbolic victory over some idea”, which is instilled in this monument at that moment, says Ivan Kurilla: “We deem you a symbol of the Russian Empire and therefore we destroy you.”

Lenin and “the granny”

On 15 March, the Russian Defence Ministry announced that the Kherson region of Ukraine is under its control. A month later, the occupation administration erected a monument to Vladimir Lenin in Henichensk.

Journalists have noted that in Henichensk they erected a different statue of Lenin to the one that had been demolished during the “decommunization”.  The origins of this new monument remain unknown. Two weeks later, a new monument to Lenin appeared in the in Kherson region, this time in the city of Nova Kakhovka. In early June, another monument to Lenin was “restored” in Novopskov, Luhansk region.

In early May, Russian officials arrived in Mariupol. They imported and triumphantly erected a monument to “the grandmother with the Soviet flag”, which briefly became one of the symbols [and memes] of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [You can read about her in Russian here.]

Around the same time, the Russian military in the village of Manhush near Mariupol demolished the Ukrainian monument to Hetman Petra Sahaidachny – a 17th century Ukrainian military leader who, among other things, orchestrated raids on Moscow.

“A monument is a way of defining and marking a territory. You go somewhere and say, I erect a monument and alter the signs,” remarks the cultural analyst Jan Levchenko, “one must create enclaves and define them in any way. Lenin was demolished there, so we shall rebuild him. It is the symbolic demarcation of space by any means which come to hand, regardless of the connection between these images and the past or present.”

Ivan Kurilla explains the appearance of monuments to Lenin and “the grandmother” in the occupied territories by the fact that the symbolism of the Soviet Union is best suited to explain Russia’s actions in Ukraine. “The idea of denazification failed as an explanation for what is happening, which is best explained as a partial restoration of the USSR, not as a communist regime, but as an empire. Therefore, the red flag is the most logical symbol, as Russia has not yet invented another symbolic justification for these events,” he says.

“When Russian forces erect a monument to Lenin, what do they have in mind? Communism? Clearly not. It turns out that for them, Lenin is also a symbol of Soviet, or Russian, influence and the spread of the empire,” adds Kurilla.

 “Monuments don’t just stand”

The debate around what to do with Soviet monuments in Europe stems from the collapse of the USSR. In the 1990s, the post-Soviet republics in the Baltic and the Caucasus began to dispose of monuments to Lenin and other communists. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the discussion surrounding Soviet monuments escalated.

In May, the Latvian Parliament voted to withdraw from the treaty with Russia on the preservation of military memorials. A few days after the vote, a decision was made to demolish the monument to Soviet soldiers in Riga, which they planned to complete by the end of the year. According to public opinion polls, 70% of Latvian citizens support or are indifferent towards the demolition of the monument to Soviet soldiers. However, the Russian speaking population of the country, especially the “Latvian Russian Union” movement, is strongly opposed to the demolition of the monument. The Russian Foreign Ministry were outraged by this decision from the Latvian authorities.

Now the area around the monument is closed and guarded by the police.

After that, a monument to Soviet pilots was demolished in the Ilguciems region of Riga. The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin requested to “investigate the circumstances” of the demolition of this monument.

During the war, the two last monuments to Lenin in Finland were also demolished. One – in the city of Turku, and the other in the city of Kotka. The monuments were transferred to a museum. The Finnish authorities attributed the demolition of the monuments to negative reactions in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Vilnius City Council in June also voted to dismantle the monument to Soviet soldiers in the Antakalnis Cemetery. The authorities stated that the monument would be relocated.

Discussion around the demolition of Soviet monuments also began in Germany. In March, activists draped a T-34 tank in Berlin in a Ukrainian flag, after which German politicians began advocating for the demolition of this and other Soviet monuments in the city. Similar calls have emerged regarding the monument to the Red Army in Dresden.

“This war is obviously unfair and casts a shadow over everything done both by Russia and the Soviet Union before it. If for a long time it was possible to insist that these are monuments to the liberators, that the Soviet Union liberated Europe from fascism, and this was an important part of the discourse, and it was difficult to fight; then now the image of the Russian Red Army, which invaded independent Ukraine overrides the Soviet Red Army’s liberation campaign,” – comments Ivan Kurilla.

According to him, any monument to a Soviet soldier is now associated with Bucha and other atrocities in Ukraine, not with the liberation of Europe.

Monuments have always been a facet of politics, summarises Ivan Kurilla. He cited the monument to Henry IV of Bourbon in Paris, which had been erected in 1614. After the French Revolution, the monument was demolished and melted down, making it a revolutionary symbol. And after the restoration of the Bourbons, the monument was cast in the same form and reinstalled in the city.

“The fact that he still stands means that there are no more monarchists left in France who would wish to reinstate the Bourbons as kings. Roughly speaking, Lenin will remain even when there is no one left seeking a return of communism or the Soviet Union, – says the historian. – Monuments don’t just stand, they are demolished, or erected, or adorned with flowers or graffiti. When a monument stands undisturbed it means that everything which it could epitomise is in the distant past.”

Read this story in Russian here.