In the center of Kyiv, a sculpture was recently dismantled under the “Arch of Friendship of Peoples”, installed in 1982 as a symbol of the “reunification” of Ukraine and Russia. In 2018, a drawing appeared on the arch – “a crack in friendship”: artists and human rights activists decided to perform such a symbolic action because of the case of Oleg Sentsov and other political prisoners. Now, during the full-scale war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine, the Kyiv authorities have taken the initiative to dismantle “friendship”.
This is how the Peoples’ Friendship Arch monument looked before demolition. At the top of the arch is visible “crack of friendship”
During the dismantling, when the sculpture was lifted from the pedestal, the head of a Russian worker fell off (see header photo). In this, the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, saw a kind of symbol.
Why did they decide to remove the sculpture right now and what might appear on the site of the Soviet monument? DW spoke with Vladyslav Osmak, a researcher of the history of Kyiv, head of the cultural and artistic center of the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”.
DW: A part of the Peoples’ Friendship Arch was dismantled the other day. What is this monument of monumental art known for? What story is associated with it?
Vladislav Osmak: The attraction consists of three components. This is a metal arch 35 meters high, under which there was a sculptural composition of two figures – workers, Ukrainian and Russian, as could be seen from their clothes. They held the Order of Friendship of Peoples, one of the famous orders of the Soviet era, on outstretched arms above their heads. These two workers were virtually indistinguishable from each other: both had a strong muscular physique, both were tall and strong. But if you look closely, on the collar and sleeves of the shirt of one of them you could see a hint of the Ukrainian traditional ornament for vyshyvanka. And the second, who has a naked torso, is covered with a work apron. These two, according to the logic of Soviet ideological propaganda, personified a new unity – what was later called Homo Sovieticus. Differences in lifestyle and culture were almost invisible. And this erasure of national characteristics was part of the Soviet totalitarian policy.
Headless sculpture on the day of dismantling. April 26, 2022
Another sculptural multi-figure composition was located next to the workers, in the center of which Bogdan Khmelnitsky and the Russian boyar Vasily Buturlin were depicted. The latter headed the embassy of the Russian Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich at the Pereyaslav Rada in 1654, when an agreement was signed between Muscovy and the Ukrainian Cossack state.
The special “merit” of the boyar Buturlin was that he forced the Ukrainian side to swear the church oath unilaterally, leaving the Moscow side the right to violate this agreement. The treaty was violated a few decades later, which began the transformation of Ukraine into a colony of Muscovy, and then the Russian Empire. This monument shows conditional Muscovites and Ukrainians as of the 17th century. The erection of the monument was initiated in 1979 on the occasion of the 325th anniversary of the Pereyaslav Rada, which in Soviet ideology was presented as “reunification”. The monument was opened in 1982 – on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Soviet Union, and at the same time they somehow tied it to the 1500th anniversary of Kyiv, which was celebrated that same year.
– Such a historical mishmash: here is the Pereyaslav Rada, here are the workers, here is a reinforced concrete arch, with a hint of a rainbow. What ideological message was the composition supposed to carry?
– If you look at the whole composition as a whole, you can see a powerful Soviet propaganda ideology. All elements of the composition should demonstrate the historical unity of the two fraternal peoples, under which the idea of destroying the Ukrainian people and turning Ukrainians into Russians was hidden. It started back in the 17th century, but Russia did not let Ukrainians out of its clutches all this time, and now a terrible, full-scale war is going on in Ukraine. But this composition was never loved in Kyiv, calling it a “yoke”. This is a clear indication of what this monument was here.
– The Kyiv authorities want to leave the arch and rename it the “Arch of the Freedom of the Ukrainian People.” Don’t you think that this is a half-hearted decision, because the association with the totalitarian Soviet past will still remain?
– This is a monument to Soviet propaganda. So it should have long been removed from the public space of the European capital, independent sovereign Ukraine, but not in the way they have done now: they cut it, they broke it. This is vandalism. This is a rather superficial change. The mayor of Kyiv also said that the multi-figured composition would be protected by shields and used as an art object, and the arch would be renamed. But no matter how you rename it, the Soviet symbol will still remain Soviet – with the gigantomania characteristic of that time. It would be most correct to create a corresponding museum of the Soviet era in Kyiv, dismantle the entire complex, including the arch, and mount it again in the museum so that you can clearly see in one place how Soviet propaganda worked. The main thing is that we do not stop halfway – to remove the Soviet sculptures, but leave everything else.
You can’t do it mindlessly. For example, the author of the Arch of Friendship of Peoples, the famous Ukrainian sculptor Alexander Skoblikov, is the author of a large number of commemorative plaques, busts of Soviet communist leaders. But at the same time, he is also the author of the monument to Vernadsky in Kyiv and the monument to the famous Kyiv doctor Feofil Yanovsky, who was a model of ethics in medicine. On the one hand – deceitful and ugly, on the other – important for Ukrainian culture. We cannot pretend that the Soviet times did not exist in our history.
Sooner or later, we need to stop being afraid of our own past, start to comprehend it and ask questions: these Soviet artists – who are they for us? What is the significance in contemporary Ukrainian art? It won’t be easy. But only in this way, through a professional approach to each object, we will be able to overcome the Soviet consequences in our heads. Because simply to destroy is to repeat what the Soviet government did.
– How do you feel about the fact that monuments to Pushkin are also being dismantled in Ukraine, and in Kyiv they want to demolish the monument to Bulgakov?
– Dismantling should be accompanied by the creation of appropriate museum exhibits. Simply dismantling and throwing away is like putting a band-aid on a wound that is still bleeding. This process must be approached differently. If no one will cry for Pushkin, then the monument to Mikhail Bulgakov, who is the author, in particular, of The White Guard, has long become part of the Kyiv area. When removing or erecting something in public space, we need to discuss sensibly and calmly, without a sense of catastrophe (for while it is all worth it), what we are losing and what we are gaining. There will be healing and a better understanding of what these names mean to us today as the discussion progresses. There is no need to engage in a mechanical replacement of everything Soviet-Russian, you need to comprehend.
After demolition. Kyiv, April 26, 2022
– The war of Russia against Ukraine began in 2014, now the active phase of the invasion is underway. Why, in your opinion, were Soviet monuments, in particular, the Peoples’ Friendship Arch, not dismantled eight years ago? Why did Arka not fall under the process of decommunization?
– In Ukraine, people who make such decisions largely underestimate the impact of monumental art in the public space. There are no demonstrations under this arch, and it is minimally vandalized, unlike other monuments. It does not irritate and you don’t have to worry about it, because dismantling everything and moving it to the museum is troublesome and expensive. The symbolic meaning of this monument in the urban space was given less importance than it should have been. This is a problem of education and the interest of state and city structures – after all, then you have to think about what exactly to put there.
– By the way, there is already a discussion in society about what is better to put instead of the Arch. What could it be?
– I expect an avalanche of new monuments and monuments made in the same Soviet style as the one that is now being removed from our streets. For there is a school and a tradition, and it is very difficult for contemporary art to make its way into the public space of our cities and towns. It is difficult to imagine something abstract on the site of the dismantled monument, not a person, but some kind of object, in Ukraine these are isolated cases, unfortunately.
But let the place rest! When the last Lenin fell in Kyiv on Shevchenko Boulevard, they immediately suggested, they say, let’s put the Mother of God or Shevchenko there, or put something else. That is, an ideological war is taking place by means of monumental art: we have overcome the Soviet and must immediately seal the place consecrated by Soviet ideology with our ideology. It is more correct to look at this place from the point of view of benefit for the townspeople and not be afraid of emptiness and pauses.
However, in real life, unfortunately, this is not the case, there is an overlay of modern history on the unrethought Soviet history. As in the case of the memorial complex in Kyiv near the Shulyavska metro station, where there was a tank and pylons with inscriptions of the names of hero cities during the Second World War. It was a Soviet monument that reflected the Soviet ideology of the Great Patriotic War, and not the Second World War, as the new Ukrainian historiography began to assert. And now the names of Russian and Belarusian hero cities are being knocked down there, and instead, the names of the current Ukrainian hero cities are being entered into the Soviet monument. Another war, another enemy, but the same monument! But are we doing the right thing by mechanically adding the memory of this Russian war to Soviet monuments? Maybe our history requires completely different monuments and a different language? There are other ways to perpetuate and honor, except as monuments. I would like our officials and our artists to start thinking about it.
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