‘Lenin was an enemy of humanity’: Why Kyiv wants to put Cossack chief statue in place of Soviet leader (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 3 days ago by ttayh@lemmy.zip to c/slop@hexbear.net

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10430348

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10430184

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After winning independence in 1991, Ukraine removed large numbers of Soviet-era statues and renamed streets as part of “decommunisation”. The process sped up in 2014 when Russia seized Crimea and fighting began in the Donbas, and moved even faster after Vladimir Putin’s 2022 full-scale invasion that aimed to scrub Ukraine from Europe’s map.

Nataliia Kryvda, a professor of the history of culture at Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv, said Ukraine was going through an unfinished period of decolonisation. “The USSR absorbed national cultures. It tried to make a single nation of Soviet citizens. Russia today looks at Ukraine and says we are one people. It isn’t true. We have our own mindset, historical destiny, beliefs and dreams. Our identity is a dynamic process,” she said.

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[-] GrouchyGrouse@hexbear.net 24 points 2 days ago

It only makes sense in that context. Why would you draw the borders there? Because you were trying to create a functional Soviet republic, so it gets a nice river basin. If the borders had been drawn up in a more adversarial context Russia would have just kept more or all of it.

[-] Collatz_problem@hexbear.net 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It's actually much more complex. Donbass had a slight Ukrainian majority, but it was mostly rural. And also Ukrainians were (and still are, however much Ukrainian government insists on opposite) very heterogenous. And also there were (and still are!) plenty of people without clear preference for one of the national identities.

[-] ConcreteHalloween@hexbear.net 15 points 2 days ago

I was under the impression it was more than Donbas had a large industrial sector and industrial workers were the most pro Bolshevik demographic, the rest of Ukraine was mostly small holdings farmers so Lenin was essentially trying to gerrymander Ukraine into being more pro socialist.