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Thedemolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine began during thecollapse of the Soviet Union and continued on a smaller scale throughout the 1990s, primarily in some western towns ofUkraine. However, by 2013, mostLenin statues across Ukraine were still intact. During the 2013–2014Euromaidan protests, the destruction of statues became widespread, a phenomenon that came to be popularly known asLeninopad (orLeninfall) in English.[1] The use of "-пад" being akin to English words suffixed with "fall" as in "waterfall" and "snowfall".
The demolition of Lenin monuments in Ukraine happened in four stages. During the 1990s, more than 2,000 Lenin monuments were demolished in western Ukraine, at the turn of the 1990–2000s more than 600 Lenin monuments were removed in western and central areas, in 2005–2008, more than 600 were demolished mainly in central areas, and in 2013–2014, 552 monuments were demolished.[2]
The first wave of demolitions of Lenin monuments happened in Western Ukraine in 1990–1991. On 1 August 1990, inChervonohrad a Lenin monument was demolished for the first time in the USSR.[3] Under popular pressure the monument was dismantled, formally with the purpose of moving elsewhere. That same year, Lenin monuments were dismantled in Ternopil, Kolomyia, Nadvirna, Borislav, Drohobych, Lviv and other cities ofGalicia.[4]
In 1991, Ukraine had 5,500 Lenin monuments.[5] In November 2015, approximately 1,300 Lenin monuments were still standing.[5] More than 700 Lenin monuments were removed and/or destroyed between February 2014 and December 2015.[5]
On 9 April 2015, theUkrainian parliament passed legislation on decommunization.[6] On 15 May 2015,President of UkrainePetro Poroshenko signed this bill into law that started a six-month period forthe removal of communist monuments (excludingWorld War II monuments) and the mandatory renaming of settlements with names related toCommunism.[7] On 16 January 2017, theUkrainian Institute of National Remembrance announced that 1,320 Lenin monuments were dismantled during decommunization.[8]
A website "Raining Lenins"[9] tracks the statistics of the fall of Lenin statues in Ukraine.[4]
On 17 March 2016, the largest Lenin monument at the unoccupied territory of Ukraine, 19.8 meters high, was dismantled inZaporizhzhia.[10] In between the annexation of theCrimean Peninsula by the Russian Federation and 28 September 2014, the largest Lenin monument at the unoccupied territory was standing inKharkiv (20.2 m high).[11][12] Thisstatue of Lenin in Kharkiv was toppled and destroyed on 28 September 2014.[13]
In February 2019,The Guardian reported that the two Lenin statues in theChernobyl Exclusion Zone were the only two remaining statues of Lenin in Ukraine, if not taking into accountoccupied territories of Ukraine.[14] In January 2021"Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty" located three more remaining Lenin statues in three (Ukrainian controlled) small villages. This increased the number of remaining Lenin statues to five.[15]
During theRussian invasion of Ukraine, many of these statues of Lenin, which had been taken down by Ukrainian activists, werere-erected by Russian occupiers in Russian-controlled areas.[16][17][18][19]
The start of the "Leninopad" in its mass was laid by the demolition of the Lenin monument in Kyiv on the Bessarabian Square. The event took place on 8 December 2013 at around 6:00 pm. Even more people began to massively destroy monuments of the Soviet past after reports about the Euromaidan activists who died during the protests in Kyiv.
In January 2015, theMinistry of Culture of Ukraine announced that it would encourage all public initiatives related to cleaning Ukraine of monuments to figures of the communist past. According to MinisterVyacheslav Kyrylenko, his department will initiate the removal from the State Register of Immovable Monuments of Ukraine of all monuments related to communist figures listed there. "The state will not oppose, but on the contrary, will in every possible way support all public initiatives that will fight for the cleansing of Ukraine from these relics of the totalitarian past," the minister emphasized.[20]
In April 2015, theVerkhovna Rada of Ukraine voted in favor of the draft law "On the condemnation of the communist andnational socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes in Ukraine and the prohibition of propaganda of their symbols", which, in particular, will oblige local authorities to dismantle monuments to communist figures on the territory of Ukraine.[21]
Euromaidan protesters toppled several statues ofVladimir Lenin in Ukrainian cities.[22][23][24] Some estimates said that more than a hundred statues were toppled.[25] In December 2015,The Ukrainian Week calculated that 376 Lenin monuments were removed or destroyed in February 2014.[5]
This is a partial list:
| Landmark | Location | Date | Status | Notes | Image |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Statue of Lenin | Andriievo-Ivanove | 3 January 2014 | Broken in two | Police launched an investigation based on a Criminal Code article entitled "Destruction of, or Damage to, Monuments of History or Culture".[26] | |
| Statue of Lenin | Berdychiv | 22 February 2014 | Toppled and destroyed | [27][28] |  |
| Statue of Lenin | Bila Tserkva | 2014 | Toppled and destroyed | [22][29] |  |
| Statue of Lenin | Chernihiv | 21 February 2014 | Toppled | [30][31] |  |
| Statue of Lenin | Chervona Sloboda | 8 July 2014 | Toppled | According to the Ukrainian Communist Party "a criminal case has been opened over the act of vandalism".[32][33] | |
| Statue of Lenin | Kharkiv | 28 September 2014 | Toppled and destroyed |  | |
| Statue of Lenin | Kherson | 7 February 2013 | Destroyed | [34] | |
| Statue of Lenin | Khmelnytskyi | 21 February 2014 | Toppled | [22][29][35] | |
| Statue of Lenin | Korosten | 5 October 2014 | Toppled |  | |
| Statue of Lenin | Kyiv | 8 December 2013 | Toppled and destroyed | [23] | .JPG) |
| Statue of Lenin | Melitopol | 5 July 2015 | Dismantled by the City Council | .jpg) | |
| Statue of Lenin | Novomoskovsk | 2 August 2015 | Toppled | [36] | |
| Statue of Lenin | "Pressmash" Factory,Odesa | 23 October 2015 | Transformed into astatue of Darth Vader | [37] | |
| Statue of Lenin | Podilsk | 8 December 2013 | Broken into several pieces | [26] | |
| Statue of Lenin | Pryluky | Dismantled |  | ||
| Bust of Lenin | Sievierodonetsk | 1 October 2014 | Set on fire and dismantled | [38] | |
| Statue of Lenin | Stanytsia Luhanska | 16 April 2015 | Toppled | | |
| Statue of Lenin | Velyki Sorochyntsi | Dismantled |  | ||
| Statue of Lenin | Zaporizhzhia | 17 March 2016 | Dismantled | [39] | |
| Statue of Lenin | Zhytomyr | 21 February 2014 | Toppled and destroyed | [22][29][40] |
The removal of the monuments evoked mixed feelings among the Ukrainian population.[41] In some cases, like in Kharkiv in early 2014,[42] pro-Russian Ukrainian crowds protected the monuments, including members of the communist and socialist parties, as well as veterans of World War II and theAfghan wars.[43] The statue of Lenin in Kharkiv was toppled on 28 September 2014.[13] Late October 2014, thenKharkiv GovernorIhor Baluta admitted that he thought that the majority of Kharkiv residents had not wanted the statue removed, but said "there was hardly any protest afterward either, which is quite telling".[44]
In January 2015, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine announced that it would encourage any public initiatives related to the cleansing of Ukraine from "relics of the totalitarian past".[20]
"It is not by chance that the demonstrations that we saw after the annexation of Crimea in the east and southeast of Ukraine were organized in the squares around the monuments to Lenin, withred flags with ahammer and sickle. What is happening now in Ukraine, what was instigated by Russian aggression, is a clash between the new Ukraine and the old Soviet Union, to which the current Russia is trying to return with the help of Ukraine, seizing parts of its territories.It is not clear to me why monuments to Lenin are being demolished only now in various cities of Ukraine; why all these 24 years they continued to stand; why didn't the state administration of an independent country demolish them earlier?
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