Ukraine Expands Efforts To Eliminate Vestiges of Russia From Its' Territory

[Webster]

(The Guardian) Ukraine is accelerating efforts to erase the vestiges of Soviet and Russian influence from its public spaces by pulling down monuments and renaming hundreds of streets to honour its own artists, poets, soldiers, independence leaders and others – including heroes of this year’s war.

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

The Associated Press reported: Streets that honoured revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin or the Bolshevik Revolution were largely already gone; now Russia, not Soviet legacy, is the enemy. It’s part punishment for crimes meted out by Russia, and part affirmation of a national identity by honouring Ukrainian notables who have been mostly overlooked.

Russia, through the Soviet Union, is seen by many in Ukraine as having stamped its domination of its smaller south-western neighbour 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 their own – even as their fate hangs in the balance. Their national identity is having what may be an unprecedented surge, in ways large and small. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has taken to wearing a black T-shirt that says: “I’m Ukrainian.”