Friend-or-foe Pushkin. Babel photographed all the places in Odesa where monuments are to be removed (including that one to Babel) and asked public figures what they think about the decolonization of their city
- Author:
- Glib Gusiev
- Date:
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Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
In December 2024, The Economist magazine published an article about the “decolonization” of Odesa: it said that decolonization threatens the city’s cultural diversity. On the cover of the December issue of the magazine, the editorial staff placed a collage with a monument to Pushkin on Prymorsky Boulevard. The magazine fueled the Odesa cultural feud, which has been going on in the city for more than six months: three groups of public figures, representatives of the city hall and the regional military administration, and in the last month — representatives of UNESCO, are also participating in it. One of the important subjects of this feud is whether it is necessary to dismantle 19 Odessa monuments, including the Pushkin monument itself. Babel editor Glib Gusiev asked people who care about the cityʼs cultural life — Anastasia Pilyavski, a lecturer at Kingʼs College London, and Oleksandra Kovalchuk, deputy director of the Odesa Art Museum — about what is happening in Odesa.
For many months now, the decolonization of Odesa has been hotly debated in the media and social networks.
Dozens, if not hundreds, of people — historians, museum workers, artists and curators, city activists — are involved in the city’s cultural strife. The first instinctive impulse would be to divide them into two opposing camps along ideological lines and place each participant in one of the camps: after all, any conflict is easier to understand when two sides are involved.
For example, the author of the article in The Economist described this conflict as a confrontation between Odesa cosmopolitans and Odesa ultranationalists. However, Odesa citizens with whom Babel spoke say that this is a simplification. It would be an equal simplification to describe it as a dispute between "potatriots" and "patriots".
Many different groups, whose boundaries are blurred, are arguing over the Pushkin statue on Prymorsky Boulevard — a symbol of an oppressive empire or a symbol of Odesa’s multi-layered cultural landscape. Several conflicts are intertwined in this story. A conflict of generations. A conflict of centers of influence in local government. A conflict between groups of patriotic Odesa citizens who, however, see how Ukrainian Odesa should develop differently. It is impossible to fully describe these conflicts in a short overview like this.
However, one can record the emotions that accompany this conflict: anger, irritation, anxiety. Perhaps they arise because over the past few years, traumatic events and cultural changes in the city (and in Ukraine) have occurred with such frequency and speed that they do not have time to be realized, experienced, talked about, or archived in memory.
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Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
In April 2023, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the so-called “law on decolonization”. According to this law, local authorities at all levels were to get rid of symbols of Russian imperial policy within a year: rename streets and dismantle corresponding monuments. This law covered both monuments to Lenin and monuments to Pushkin. The Soviet Union did indeed purposefully place pedestals of the “chief poet” as markers of imperial cultural influence.
In Odesa, the Historical and Toponymic Commission of the City Council took up the issues of decolonization. The commission was assembled in a short time. It included both recognized experts and people who did not seem like obvious candidates (for example, the abbess of the ROC convent Abbess Seraphima).
This commission did not have time to decolonize all Odesa monuments and streets within the time limit set by law. Then the powers of decolonization were transferred from the city to the region: from the City Council, headed by Hennadii Trukhanov, to the Regional Military Administration (RMA), headed by Oleh Kiper. The RMA Department of Culture formed its own commission — it was supposed to decolonize what had not yet been decolonized.
The new commission included several employees of the NGO “Veterans Hub Odesa” and several employees of the History Department of the Odesa National University (along with the dean of the department). The most prominent member of the new commission was Associate Professor Oleksandr Muzychko, a supporter of Iryna Farion’s ideas. The commission compiled a list of 19 monuments to the imperial past in Odesa, and at the end of July 2024, the head of the RMA ordered their dismantling.
This list includes monuments from different eras. Some of them did not evoke strong emotions in anyone — for example, a monument to the anniversary of the Komsomol. But the list of unreliable figures that many Odesa citizens consider iconic for the city — Alexander Pushkin and Isaac Babel — also got into. If the Pushkin commission recognized him as a glorifier of tsarism and a marker of Soviet cultural expansion, Isaac Babel was accused of working in the Soviet security agencies.
The RMA Commission did not hold public hearings. Odesa ctizens learned about the dismantling of the monuments to Pushkin and Babel from the press.
Monument to writer Isaac Babel, author of "Konarmia" and "Odesa Stories". It was made in 2011 on the initiative of the World Club of Odesa citizens, founded by satirists Mykhailo Zhvanetsky and Valeriy Khait.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
The dispute over Odesa’s decolonization is made even more complicated by the fact that the controversial Pushkin monument is located in the city’s historic center, under the supervision of UNESCO. One of the UN’s specialized agencies, UNESCO maintains a special list of endangered world heritage sites. In 2023, Ukraine secured the inclusion of three Ukrainian sites, including the historic center of Odesa, which Russia has been shelling with ballistic missiles.
The driving force and project manager for the Odessa part of this process was Odesa businessman Nika Vikniansky. He assembled a working group that wrote the application dossier and convinced city officials that such an initiative was necessary. UNESCO included the historic center of Odesa on the special list at an emergency meeting in January 2023.
Within a year and a half, it became clear that within this historical center there were six monuments that the RMA had ordered to be dismantled.
«Babel'»
A group of Odessa cultural figures are now appealing to the leadership of UNESCO. They signed an open letter in which they propose to put Odessa decolonization “on pause” until the end of the war. The initiator of the letter was Anastasia Pilyavski, a native of Odesa, who teaches at King’s College London and lives in two cities (Cambridge and Odesa). It was signed by more than 150 people — professors from European and American institutions, Ukrainian military personnel, artists, journalists, and publicists.
According to Anastasia Pilyavski, she is currently in contact with the Department of Culture of the Odesa City Hall. She hopes to gather a group of international experts who will write conclusions about controversial figures in Odesa history. The first such expert has already arrived. Princeton University literature professor Ilya Kaminsky has compiled a dossier on Isaac Babel: it states that Babel did not serve in the Soviet security services.
As for the statue of Alexander Pushkin on Prymorsky Boulevard, whether it can be dismantled and whether it is part of the architectural ensemble under the UNESCO supervision must be decided by the UNESCO commission.
On behalf of Babel, Tymofiy Melnikov photographed monuments from the RMA list that have already been dismantled or are just planning to be dismantled.
Mass grave of Red Guards on Kulikovo Field.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
Monument to General Ivan Chernyakhovsky. He studied at the Odesa Infantry School and commanded the 3rd Belorussian Front in the World War II.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
Alexander Column. Installed in 1891 in honor of the arrival of Emperor Alexander II to Odesa.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
Monument to Marshal Rodion Malinovsky. Born in Odesa, he commanded the 3rd Ukrainian Front in the World War II.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
Monument to biologist and breeder Ivan Michurin. Located on the territory of the Odesa Breeding and Genetics Institute.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
Monument to designer Valentin Glushko. Born in Odesa, he developed liquid rocket engines, headed the “Energia” scientific and production association and led the Soviet “Buran” program.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
The pedestal of the monument to writer Maxim Gorkiy. The bust was dismantled in September 2024.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
"Wall of Chekists".
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
Monument to submariner Alexander Marinescu. Born in Odesa, he commanded a submarine in the Baltic Fleet. He is known for sinking a liner in 1945, on which thousands of German soldiers and civilians were being evacuated.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
Monument to agrarian Makar Posmytny. Born in the Odesa region, he organized collective farms in the Ukrainian SSR.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
Monument to test pilot Valeriy Chkalov. Located on the territory of the Chkalovsky sanatorium.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
Monument in honor of the 85th anniversary of the Komsomol of Ukraine. Erected on the initiative of Ruslan Bodelan, former first secretary of the regional committee of the Komsomol, mayor of Odesa in 1998-2005.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
The pedestal of the monument to Vladimir Vysotsky. Vysotsky co-wrote the script for the film "The Green Van", which was shot at the Odesa Film Studio. The monument was dismantled in December 2024.
Тимофiй Мельников / «Бабель»
The "Wings of Victory" monument in honor of the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the city by the troops of the 3rd Ukrainian Front. The Regional Military Administration decided to dismantle not the monument itself, but the mock-ups of the Order of Lenin on the monument. City activists removed them in September 2024.