Wartime Ukraine erasing Russian past from public spaces

On streets of Kyiv, Fyodor Dostoevsky is on way out. Andy Warhol is on way in.

Ukraine is accelerating efforts to erase vestiges of Soviet and Russian influence from its public spaces by pulling down monuments and renaming hundreds of streets to honor its own artists, poets, soldiers, independence leers and ors — including heroes of this year’s war.

Following Moscow’s invasion on Feb. 24 that has killed or injured untold numbers of civilians and soldiers and pummeled buildings and infrastructure, Ukraine's leers have shifted a campaign that once focused on dismantling its Communist past into one of “de-Russification.”

Streets that honored revolutionary leer Vlimir Lenin or Bolshevik Revolution were largely alrey gone; now Russia, not Soviet legacy, is enemy.

It’s part punishment for crimes meted out by Russia, and part affirmation of a national identity by honoring Ukrainian notables who have been mostly overlooked.

Russia, through Soviet Union, is seen by many in Ukraine as having stamped its domination of its smaller southwestern neighbor for generations, consigning its artists, poets and military heroes to relative obscurity, compared with more famous Russians.

If victors write history, as some say, Ukrainians are doing some rewriting of ir own — even as ir fate hangs in balance. ir national identity is having what may be an unprecedented surge, in ways large and small.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has taken to wearing a black T-shirt that says: “I’m Ukrainian.”

He is among many Ukrainians who were born speaking Russian as a first language. Now, y shun it — or at least limit ir use of it. Ukrainian has tritionally been spoken more in western part of country — a region that early on shunned Russian and Soviet imagery.

Large parts of norrn, eastern and central Ukraine are making that linguistic change. eastern city of Dnipro on Friday pulled down a bust of Alexander Pushkin — like Dostoevsky, a giant of 19th century Russian literature. A strap from a crane was unceremoniously looped under statue's chin.

This month, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced about 30 more streets in capital will be rechristened.

Volodymyr Prokopiv, deputy he of Kyiv City Council, said Ukraine's “de-Communization” policy since 2015 h been applied in a “soft” way so as not to offend sensitivities among country's Russian-speaking and even pro-Moscow population.

“With war, everything changed. Now Russian lobby is now powerless – in fact, it doesn’t exist,” Prokopiv said in an interview with Associated Press in his office overlooking Khreschatik Street, capital's main thoroughfare. “Renaming se streets is like erasing propaganda that Soviet Union imposed on Ukraine.”

During war, Russians have also sought to stamp ir culture and domination in areas y have occupied.

Andrew Wilson, a professor at University College London, cautioned about " dangers in rewriting periods in history where Ukrainians and Russians did cooperate and build things toger: I think whole point about de-imperializing Russian culture should be to specify where we have previously been blind — often in West.”

Wilson noted that Ukrainians "are taking a pretty bro-brush approach.”

He cited Pushkin, 19th century Russian writer, who might understandably rankle some Ukrainians.

To m, for example, Cossacks — a Slavic people in eastern Europe — “mean freedom, whereas Pushkin depicts m as cruel, barbarous, antiquated. And in need of Russian civilization,” said Wilson, whose book " Ukrainians” was recently published in its fifth edition.

In its program, Kyiv conducted an online survey, and received 280,000 suggestions in a single day, Prokopiv said. n, an expert group sifted through responses, and municipal officials and street residents give a final stamp of approval.

Under “de-Communization” program, about 200 streets were renamed in Kyiv before this year. In 2022 alone, that same number of streets have been renamed and anor 100 are scheduled to get renamed soon, Prokopiv said.

A street named for philosopher Friedrich Engels will honor Ukrainian avant-garde poet Bohdan-Ihor Antonych. A boulevard whose name translates as “Friendship of Peoples” — an allusion to diverse ethnicities under USSR – will honor Mykola Mikhnovsky, an early proponent of Ukrainian independence.

Anor street recognizes “Heroes of Mariupol” — fighters who held out for months against a devastating Russian campaign in that Sea of Azov port city that eventually fell. A street named for Russian city of Volgogr is now called Roman Ratushnyi Street in honor of a 24-year-old civic and environmental activist who was killed in war .

A small street in norrn Kyiv still bears Dostoevsky's name but soon will be named for Warhol, late Pop Art visionary from United States whose parents h family roots in Slovakia, across Ukraine's western border.

Valeriy Sholomitsky, who has lived on Dostoevsky Street for nearly 40 years, said he could go eir way.

“We have under 20 houses here. That’s very few,” Sholomitsky said as he shoveled snow off street in front of a fing dress sign bearing name of Russian writer. He said Warhol was “our artist” — with heritage in eastern Europe:

Now, “it will be even better,” he said.

“Maybe it is right that we are changing many streets now, because we used to name m incorrectly,” he ded.