November 21, 2015 is the day when the local communities will have made the appropriate decisions on how to get rid of the totalitarian legacy by renaming streets, squares, and geographical features. Then, within three months Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine will adopt the law to endorse the renaming and the local authorities will have another six months to choose the new names. The Institute for National Memory, which had initiated the law on decommunization, reminds that the renaming is anticipated in regard of the features which contain the following names or aliases: those of persons who occupied official positions in the Communist Party not lower than the Secretary of the District Committee; those of senior government members of the Soviet Union, of the Ukrainian SSR, and other autonomous republics; those of the state security service staff. Additionally, the names that contain the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian SSR, and titles of other autonomous republics, as well as the names derived from those, are also subject to change. On October 20, members of Ukrainian Institute for National Memory held the press conference to answer the most frequent questions in regard of the decommunization process. They also reported on the first successes: the city council of Dzerzhynsk, Donetsk oblast, had agreed upon renaming the city into Toretsk – by name of the nearby river, Kazenny Torets. In the same oblast, Artemivsk will soon adopt its historical name of Bakhmut...
“Ukraine will never succeed in building a prosperous and peaceful future unless we overcome the legacy of the totalitarian past. For totalitarianism and welfare are incompatible. Thus, renaming the street names associated with the Communist regime is a prerequisite for our country to have a positive societal transformation,” said Oleksandr Zinchenko, advisor to the chairman of the Institute.
Obviously, it is the necessary condition, but not the principal one. New street names alone will not lead to a qualitative social change. We have to change our mode of thinking, behavior, life guidance, the integrity of our positions, and many other things one cannot easily dismantle from a pedestal or change with a new sign on the exterior. And this is the greatest challenge of the decommunization of the Ukrainian society. There are many signs on how the changes occur and whether they occur at all. One of the examples discussed today – the situation in Hlukhiv. The reaction of society and politicians to the struggle between Michel Terestchenko, descendant of an aristocratic family, and Andrii Derkach, who is an embodiment of the KGB traditions of old, will provide the answer to the question of whether decommunization happens successfully.
But the question is not of a kind one can demonstrate answers to by picking up and displaying fragments of Lenin’s statues or Soviet mosaics. And this is another problem. Decommunization process should occur in multiple dimensions and change the very essence. However, now we see only the exterior changing. Undoubtedly, communist names should be changed, and relevant symbols removed. But the problem should be approached to with different rhetoric and different mechanism for change, if we are to adopt the stance of new, non-Soviet society. Many things require expertise – detailed, lengthy, and competent evaluation; many things are in need of rethinking. This applies, in particular, to the monumental art, instances of which fall under the law, and to the new settlement names. And therefore, the Institute’s idea to finish the process before the November 21 – the Day of Dignity and Freedom – is symbolic on the one hand, but on the other it demonstrates the very Soviet tradition of the completion “up to the certain date.” The same applies to mosaics, many of which are now under the impeding threat of destruction, despite being valuable works of art that have already lost their ideological links. Rushing the decommunization process, one can knock genuine artistic treasures from the facades. There is simply not enough time left for their study and assessment, and hence – for their protection.
“The paradox of this monumental art is contained within its very essence. It was officially created by ideology, but actually it turned out that this art is counter-ideological. The mosaics have already lost all the ideological messages they were imbued with. And now they reveal their artistic nature, the uniqueness,” says Yevhenia Moliar, curator of the “Soviet mosaic in Ukraine” project of the Isolation foundation. The past six months she and her colleagues are forced to rescue the mosaics on a daily basis instead of performing the academic and historical research on them. “Every time we have to fight back the accusation of being pro-Soviet fighters, reactionaries, and USSR lovers; we are talking merely about the art and the reconsideration of it,” continues Moliar. “Back in May, just after the law had been adopted, I attended one broadcast. I said that the expert assessment is needed in order not to damage distinguished artwork. But the activists replied that while we will be busy evaluating, they will break everything down in one night. I live near the Beresteiska subway station. The next morning, I go out, and the monument to communist Demian Korotchenko is gone. Well, that’s fine – it was just another monumental figure that nobody knows, identical to many others. But the unique sculpture by V. Soroka to the Komsomol of the 1920s in the “Nyvky” park had also disappeared overnight. It may have even been sold to someone. This was an outstanding work of art; it had been in the list of monumental art heritage. This law, in fact, unleashes ignorant vandals. From the very beginning of the decommunization process we have insisted that until the monumental artwork is fully researched, the law should not apply to them at all! Yet it is complicated. So far, there is no evaluation, no mechanisms of implementation, and no methodology for that.”
