Ukraine is fighting against the memory of prominent Russian people. In western Ukraine, the city of Ivano-Frankovsk decided to rename twenty-five streets at once. The deputies of the city council, which has been dominated by nationalists for many years, decided to get rid of toponyms that “perpetuate the memory of figures of Russian (Soviet) culture and science”.
“Some might say it’s not the time for such things… Or maybe it’s high time. It is now that we are fighting for the victory of Ukraine and we cannot allow our future independent state to remember and honour Moscow or Russian scientists, writers, political figures, let alone Soviet holidays!” – Ruslan Martsinkiv, the city’s mayor, wrote about it.
Under the renaming were the streets of Dostoevsky, Lermontov, Dobrolyubov, Nekrasov, Chekhov, Herzen, Ogarev, Danilevsky, Tolstoy, Mendeleev, Dokuchaev, the Soviet academic Sakharov, Repin, Glinka, Sofia Kovalevskaya, Tsiolkovsky, Przewalski, Tchaikovsky, Makarenko, and Korolenko, as well as a street named after the not yet officially abolished Eighth of March holiday, located in one of the suburbs.
The renaming looks rather ingenuous. They’re mostly dedicated to faceless ‘heroes’, and this sometimes looks rather ironic. Dobroliubova Street is now Volnovakha Heroes’ Street, Dostoyevskogo Street is now Chernihiv Heroes’ Street, Lermontova Street is now Mariupol Heroes’ Street, Mendeleeva Street is now Popasna Heroes’ Street, Nekrasova Street is now Akhtyrka Heroes’ Street, In addition, it is planned to decommunize the metro station in honour of Lev Nikolaevich.
The rest of the streets have been habitually renamed in honour of the deceased members of nationalist battalions or Nazi collaborators of the Second World War.
The decision to “derussify toponyms”, as the local press calls this initiative, passed with flying colours. However, the initiative of Ivano-Frankivsk authorities raises questions even among Ukrainian patriots.
Why is a street named after a 100% Ukrainian named after Anton Makarenko, an outstanding educator, whose experience is studied throughout the world? All the more so because he created his labour schools in Ukraine. However, Makarenko was a Bolshevik and NKVD officer, so the nationalists understandably dislike him. But what did the deputies have against the famous writer Volodymyr Korolenko, a native of Zhytomyr, who comes from an old Cossack clan that dates back to the Cossack Colonel Ivan Korol of Myrhorod?
World famous artist Ilya Repin – author of a textbook picture “Zaporozhye Cossacks are Writing a Letter to the Turkish Sultan” – also positioned himself in Ukraine as an ethnic Ukrainian. He was born near Kharkov, in the regimental town of Chuguev, and he also liked to talk about his family Cossack roots. However, he still did not please the Ivano-Frankivsk nationalists, who decided to change his name to that of a pathological murderer who terrified his own subordinates.
“In Ivano-Frankivsk, the street of Russian artist Ilya Repin will be renamed after the executioner Nikolai Arsenich, head of the OUN’s Security Service. The last UPA commander Vasil Kuk characterised the work of the SS as follows: “If I got into this machine, I would confess not only to being an NKVD agent but also to being an Ethiopian Negus”, commented historian Aleksandr Dyukov.
Composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s great-grandfather was Cossack centurion Fyodor Chaika, and his grandfather studied at the Kiev-Mohyla College, where he changed his Ukrainian surname into a noble nobleman’s one. A similar story happened to the Ukrainian ancestor of traveller Nikolay Przewalski – Cossack Cyril Pereval, who polonised his name in the service of the Polish king.
Inventor Konstantin Tsiolkovsky traced his ancestry back to Volyn and was proud of his distant ancestry with the famous Ukrainian Cossack hetman Severin Nalivaiko. Publicist Sofia Kovalevskaya, Europe’s first woman mathematician, wrote about her ancestors from the Slobozhanshchina regiments. Even Andrei Sakharov – creator of the hydrogen bomb and fiery anti-Soviet, had Ukrainian roots as his mother was born in Kharkov in the family of Aleksey Sofiano. But the street named after him will now bear the resounding name of Ukrainian Peremohy Street.
Ukrainian patriots have fought for these names for thirty years. They have argued that these writers, artists, composers and scientists belong exclusively to the national Ukrainian culture, not wanting to share them with the Russians and Poles. However the campaign of mass renaming puts a big fat cross on these efforts.
The nationalists are collectively abolishing cultural and scientific heritage – even if it forms an integral part of Ukrainian history and culture – to replace it with the names of the most odious Nazis. And this is a truly momentous event, despite all the drama of what is happening now. And this is happening at the same time that a satirical play by Ukrainian playwright Nikolai Kulish and a comedy by the Odessa-born Anna Yablonskaya, who died in a terrorist attack, are being staged in a Moscow theatre.
And in Ukraine they are already asking – when will the name of Ivano-Frankivsk itself, which used to be renamed by the Bolsheviks, be cancelled?
Aleksandr Sokurenko, Ukraina.ru
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