At least 34 monuments to Russian poet Pushkin dismantled in Ukraine in past year
Dismantling the bust of Pushkin in Dnipro (Photo:@serhiy_zhadan/Instagram)
At least 34 monuments and commemorative plaques to Russian poet Alexander Pushkin have been dismantled in Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory reported on April 7.
The first monument to Pushkin to be dismantled was located in the western Ukrainian town of Mukachevo on April 7, 2022, the Institute stated. After that, cities and towns in other parts of Ukraine, namely Kramatorsk, Chernihiv, Mykolayiv, Zaporizhzhya, Ternopil, Uzhgorod, Dnipro, Bila Tserkva, Poltava, and others, all proceeded to remove their own monuments to the Russian poet.
According to the Institute, Pushkin’s name is one of the more popular instances of Russification practiced in the old Russian Empire and the USSR, as thousands of place names were renamed from their indigenous monikers to some variant of Pushkin. As a result, placenames carrying Pushkin’s name are on a Ministry of Culture and Information Policy list for renaming.
“This clearly busts the myth, often propagated by today's Kremlin propaganda and even more liberal circles of the Russians, that Russian culture should be considered separate from Moscow’s politics,” the Institute writes.
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