Online voting on the fate of the monument to Catherine II was recently completed in Odesa, as informed the city council — the majority of Odessans who took part in the vote supported the idea of dismantling the monument. After that, the monument was surrounded by a fence and preparations for dismantling the sculptural composition began.
ElitExpert was told about the fate of monuments, whether it is necessary to create parks of the totalitarian past and Russia's manipulation of history, politician, doctor of technical sciences, professor Mykhailo Pozhivanov, who heads the Odesa city organization of the party VO "Batkivshchyna".
HALF-MADE SOLUTIONS AND POLITICAL GAMES
In my opinion, all this rhetoric is a half-assed project. When this or that issue divides society, the government, trying to find a compromise, wants to be good for both sides. On the one hand, we seem to remove this monument in order to satisfy the more radical part of Odessa and say "yes, we removed it", and for those who are against its demolition, the authorities say "well, we have far from removed it, we they didn't demolish it, they just moved it to the park, you can go and see it, we preserved the history."
By and large, these are all political games, because we do not have an ideology that has already been established and a correct understanding of historical processes, there is manipulation of what we were taught in different years in different ways.
PUTIN'S STATEMENTS ARE THE DELUSIONS OF A MAD MAN
For me, as the former head of Mariupol, Putin's phrase that Mariupol is an "ancient Russian city" is perceived as the delusion of a crazy person who does not understand and does not know the history or everything that happened in Mariupol. The same applies to Odessa, because by and large, the year of foundation of Odessa (1794) is close to the year of foundation of Mariupol (1778).
At the place where Mariupol was founded, there were only 15-20 houses, it was a defense post, there was not even a large village, there were no farmers, there were no farms - only a post. And this was considered a settlement, then the Greeks headed by Metropolitan Ignatius came to this territory and the first settlement of Marianapol (Mariupolis) appeared, which has nothing to do with Russian history.
As for Odesa, which Putin also considers a "Russian city", since the XNUMXth century the coast has been owned by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which established the Kotsyubiy fortress and port here, in the XNUMXth century the land became part of the Ottoman Empire and was renamed Hajibey. And already at the end of the XNUMXth century, after the conquest of Khadzhibey by the Russian Empire, it was renamed Odessa, so it is obvious that the Russians are also manipulating the issue of the establishment of Odessa.
It is also worth mentioning a very important thing that it was Catherine II who liquidated the Zaporizhzhya Sich and introduced serfdom on the territory of Ukraine. And those peasants who fled from serfdom to the south settled the territory of Bessarabia and present-day Odessa as well. These are important historical facts that should be known and remembered.
That's why today when people ask me the question "what is the fault of Lermontov, Pushkin or Nekrasov", I am already silent, when they start to divide to which country Bulgakov or Gogol belongs more, it all happens because of misunderstanding and lack of education.
RUSSIA REDACTED HISTORY IN OUR CONSCIOUSNESS
Russia began its aggression against Ukraine. Russia has turned 99% of the population of our country against itself, and when someone starts to defend something, it can be the narratives of the Russian Federation itself. When they say "oh, why are you cleaning it up", maybe today it makes sense to clean it up. If in 30 or 50 years we still understand in our development the genius of the same Pushkin, and understand that he is better than the same Shakespeare, Byron and others, to whom there are monuments all over the world, maybe they will return to him and others .
But in today's situation, all this must be removed. Russia took a step of aggression consciously and purposefully. And now no one will convince me that I am an intelligent person, a doctor of sciences, a member of the National Union of Artists, a writer, but I understand everything perfectly. Everything that is connected today with the history and culture of the Russian Empire and the Russian Federation, they cross out in our minds on their own.
I once quoted Pushkin, in my time they taught and knew all this at school, but today I am in favor of the fact that we did not have these narratives. In addition, we have enough of our Ukrainian cultural and artistic figures who can be studied and glorified. And if we don't have enough of our own, the world is open.
ALL THIS HERITAGE SHOULD BE CLEANED UP
In general, with regard to monuments, by and large, we understand that in a country where art and culture of one or another period are not used for manipulative purposes, no questions or disputes arise. You can walk through Paris and see monuments to historical figures of completely different periods with diametrically opposed political views, and it does not raise any questions there.
And our situation today is completely different. During all the years of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, everything was very strongly ideologized, and this was constantly manipulated on public opinion, so today there is no other solution, except that all this heritage should be removed.
