Facing the bust of a former Soviet Defense Minister erected in downtown Odessa, Ukrainian MP Peter Obukhov points to the plinth. “What is written there is unacceptable. You can read the word ‘Kremlin’”, he remarks. He does not wish to remove the statue of Rodion Malinovsky, a native of the port city celebrated for his fight against the Nazis, but he intends to “rewrite the inscription and [d’]remove the communist symbols from it”, recount The Guardian.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, Peter Obukhov has launched a campaign to “derussify” his city, a concept that has caused the disappearance of many Russian names once represented all over the country. The deputy has compiled a list of historical figures present in the odonyms of Odessa, a Russian-speaking port in southeastern Ukraine. The names “acceptable” are marked in green, like that of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, who wrote his novel Eugene Onegin in the city.
Other names are on a “red list”, like that of General Alexander Suvorov (1730-1800), “symbol of Russian imperial militancy”, which gives its name to a district. “The deputy proposes to purge certain toponyms of their Russian references (Baikal, Omsk, Rostov) and to get rid of Dimitri DonskoÏ, a Muscovite prince of the XIVe century”, further notes the British daily.
Russian-speaking and cosmopolitan city
A survey of residents of Odessa, quoted by The Guardian, indicates that 44% of them support the “derussification” of their city, against 36% who oppose it. 7% are in favor of a return to the name of the communist era, a “minority largely made up of retirees”. After Ukraine’s independence in 1991, Soviet Army Boulevard and Karl Marx Street also disappeared. The Maidan uprising in 2014 then constituted a new stage in this process.
“Of course Odessa is a Russian-speaking citynotes tourist guide Larisa Otkalenko, but it is also international and cosmopolitan.“It recalls the Ottoman occupation of the territory, its link with France during the governance of the Duke of Richelieu (from 1803 to 1814), the Flemish architectural heritage and the influence of its Greek, Polish, Italian or Jewish populations.
“The past is complex, but it is ours and street names are part of it”, replies Natasha Smirnova, a resident of Odessa reluctant to “derussification”. In the occupied Ukrainian territories, the cultural fight goes the other way, notes The Guardian. Since April, a new statue of Lenin has been erected in the province of Kherson.