Ukraine blots out Soviet past in rush to rename streets
Published 01 May, 2008, 04:09
In recent months the government in Ukraine has been changing street names. Roads derived from Russian poets are being renamed after controversial national heroes, causing distress in some sections of the population. Ministers have also ordered the demolition of some monuments. So what’s behind this policy of rebranding?
Trams in the city of Lvov in western Ukraine display portraits of war general Shukhevich. He was part of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army or UPA during the Second World War.
The name of this general, along with those of other partisans, have replaced those of famous Russian poets and scientists on the street signs.
For most Ukrainians in the west of the country, they were heroes but for those in the East they were fascist stooges.
At the start of the Second World War, these figures joined Nazi battalions, Nachtigal and Roland, to liberate the country from the Soviets. But collaboration did not help – the Germans arrested their leaders almost immediately after they proclaimed Ukraine's independence. Caught between the Red Army and the fascists, the UPA decided to fight both.
The complicated history of the UPA has been made clear in Lvov. Roksolana Lemuk from the City Council says that atrocities were committed on both sides, the Soviet Union and the UPA.
But she believes heroes of the Ukrainian liberation movement must above all be remembered.
“People who live in Ukraine and eat our bread must honour our history. Nobody’s pursuing them now, killing them or deporting them to Siberia as the Soviet government did to our fathers. Our President declared Shukhevich the hero of Ukraine and we must pay tribute by naming streets after him and building monuments,” Lemuk says.
The few Jews left in Lvov agree with her. Yakov Honigsman survived the war and the Holocaust, devoting the rest of his life to writing and lecturing about it.
“They took an active part in pogroms. And nobody can deny that. Together with Germans, they formed special squads here. Moreover, the Nazis gave them the dirtiest jobs. The UPA kidnapped my friend. He told me that their elders were not so cruel, but younger boys were animals,” Honigsman said.
To erase the Soviet past, authorities have renamed more than 800 streets in Lvov. Some of them honor John Lennon, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. What’s more, a street in Lvov, which was originally named after the famous Russian poet Mihail Lermontov, has been renamed Dzhohar Dudaev street, after the Chechen militant leader from the first Chechen conflict.
Russia is deeply concerned with signs of growing nationalism in its neighbour. But its people insist that the country will not be derailed.
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