Ukrainians divided over sweeping law to erase Soviet past
KYIV, UKRAINE — A hulking steel statue of a victorious female warrior bearing aloft sword and shield looms in dour majesty over the Ukrainian capital. The Motherland Monument’s shield bears the Communist hammer-and-sickle, but maybe not for much longer.
Ukraine’s leaders are eager to be seen as reinventing the nation. And erasing all visible reminders of the communist past, they say, is an important step toward that goal.
“Elimination of communism has to happen in people’s heads and consciousness,” said Kyiv deputy mayor Oleksiy Reznikov. “Symbolism irritates some people and creates a certain aura that we need to get rid of.”
Parliament opened the way last month by backing a package of laws that included a loosely formulated ban on communist, as well as Nazi, imagery and ideology. The provisions, which still require approval from President Petro Poroshenko, will make it illegal to show symbols from the Soviet era, such as the logo of Communist party, or play Sovietera anthems. It will also become an offence to deny the criminal nature of the Soviet regime.
Taking down all the communist symbols will take time, money and a fair dose of acrobatics, especially in the case of objects like the 100-metre tall Motherland Monument.
“We will find alpinist patriots, like the famous ones who painted a star at the top of a Moscow hotel the blue-and-yellow (of the Ukrainian flag),” Reznikov said. “We will ask for help from brave guys like that to get this work done.”
Eager Ukrainian nationalists have for the past year been racing ahead of the authorities by pulling down dozens of statues of Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik revolutionary and founder of the Soviet Union. The sight has typically been greeted with a mixture of glee, indifference or, among mostly older people, dismay.
The thrust of what has been dubbed de-communization has sharply divided views. Supporters argue it has been long in the waiting and will set the stage for Ukraine to leave its history behind.
But others, like Halyna Coynash, a journalist and member of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, said some measures risk reverting to the censorship of the communist era. She sees particular danger in a measure that forbids any positive assessment of the Soviet era.
“They have ended up with a law that seriously endangers freedom of speech,” Coynash said.
Dismantling Soviet emblems and renaming streets named in honour of figures known to have been part of the Soviet Union’s machine of repression has garnered a wide approval. But misgivings abound.
“Saying that people cannot themselves wear a red star or even have a hammer-and-sickle on their clothing,” Coynash said, “is really quite absurd.”
Repeated violations could result in prison sentences lasting several years, also a source of anxiety.
The campaign against the anticommunist laws has been joined by the several dozen signatories to a letter to Poroshenko pleading with him to reject the bill.
“However noble the intent, the wholesale condemnation of the entire Soviet period as one of occupation of Ukraine will have unjust and incongruous consequences,” said the letter, signed by international and Ukrainian historians.