Catherine Not So Great in Odesa now
For years, whenever Mariana Kopitskaya walked past the bronze statue of Catherine the Great in Odesa’s most imposing central square, she thought of the Russian empress as the founder of the city and a giant of the Enlightenment.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine and she changed her mind. Catherine, she discovered, had brutally oppressed Ukrainians: destroying Cossack settlements in the 18th century to extend Russian imperial rule over what is today the Black Sea port city of Odesa.
Kopitskaya was now clear on where she stood with the statue: off with its head. ‘‘I understand that she’s a historical figure but she shouldn’t be here now,’’ the shop manager said, standing in Ekaterinskaya Square, just across from the statue, currently hidden behind a plywood screen for its own safety. ‘‘We should dismantle her, put her in a museum, any other place, but not here. We are creating our own story now and have to take away these symbols of the past.’’
This week, Odesa city council will vote on whether to move, destroy or keep the statue of Catherine, perhaps best known in the West for her geopolitical successes and eventful love life.
The stakes are high. Vladimir Putin has taken a personal interest in the statue and last month, in what city officials perceived as a crude attempt at psychological warfare, thanked Odesans for not taking it down. ‘‘He’s doing this on purpose so that we feel obliged to go and destroy this monument, and the whole world will say we are barbarians and vandals,’’ said mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov, later adding: ‘‘Putin and his Russian propaganda does everything for the world to accept that Catherine is the only founder of Odesa, and that she is a symbol of the city. In fact that’s not true.’’
The statue was first raised in 1900, then torn down after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and rebuilt in 2007.
Before the Russian invasion in February, Trukhanov had wanted to keep it in place. Now he believes it should be moved to a park of Soviet and imperial history. According to an online poll of 7000 people arranged by his office, more than half of voters believed the statue should be dismantled. Many others voted to keep it in place, while displaying additional information about her rule.
For now, city officials say, it seems most likely that the statue will be moved to a less prominent location.
‘‘Everything changed on February 24,’’ when Putin invaded, Trukhanov said. The mayor’s change of heart mirrors that of the largely Russianspeaking city – once reliably proud of its place in imperial history – where Ukrainian patriotism has become the norm and thorny questions of history and identity are spilling into the open.
‘‘At the moment the war is happening and they are killing our children and destroying our cities,’’ said Trukhanov, speaking Ukrainian. ‘‘And it’s obvious for all the people of Ukraine that . . . Russian propaganda should be reconsidered, and we should rethink our attitude.’’
Plagued by allegations of corruption and links to organised crime, all of which he denies, Trukhanov was also derided as a Kremlin sympathiser, and Ukrainian nationalists in Odesa have greeted his patriotic pivot with eye-rolling and deep mistrust.
There have been several attempts to deface or destroy the statue since the war began. As well as being splashed with red paint, the empress’ head has been covered with a red hood and a noose hung on her hand. This autumn a small group of nationalists planned to behead the statue. The dawn operation failed when they realised the ladder they brought with them was too short.
Trukhanov would have breathed a sigh of relief. He is adamant that the statue should be removed in a ‘‘civilised’’ way. If it were to be destroyed, he believes, it could provide further ammunition for Putin’s claims that Russian history and Russian-speakers are being targeted by Ukrainian extremists.
His fears resonate with some of Odesa’s one million residents. In a souvenir shop by the statue, Svetlana, 50, bristled at the idea of the statue coming down. ‘‘In the Bolshevik revolution they tried to destroy everything and that didn’t go well,’’ she said.
Viktoria Nedeliaki, 51, said she was proud of her city and the many nationalities and creeds who lived there: Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Russians and Ukrainians alike.
‘‘Let’s have some critical thinking and people can decide for themselves after the war is over whether they want to take it down. Now is not the time,’’ she said. ‘‘Politics will change tomorrow but history is for ever.’’ –