Two weeks ago, shortly after I passed by, the Odesa Municipal Council finally voted to dismantle the statue of Tsarina Catherine II – effectively an ensemble in which she towers majestically over the four founders of the imperial city, of whom I know best Grigory Potemkin, the man with the props . The statues will not be destroyed, but moved to the local Art Museum, and this is the latest episode in a long and exotic saga, very appropriate to the spirit of the city and illustrative of the battle for national identity currently taking place in Ukraine. .

Initially, the monument was erected at the end of the 19th century for the 200th anniversary of the founding of Odessa, but in Bolshevik times, of course, it could not stand: it was taken in parts to the museum, and Catherine Square was renamed Charles Square. Marx, and the corresponding bust was placed on a pedestal. As the work was poor, the bust fell in a storm; he was replaced by another, older Marx, whom the Odessans naturally christened Charles II. But there was no lack of ideological twists in the Soviet period, so in 1965 “Karl” was removed to replace it with a memorial to the sailors who rebelled on the cruiser “Potemkin”, immortalized by director Eisenstein in a propaganda film full of historical fakes. this is – you know (for decades in a row on the list of the TV encyclopedia), which in the meantime has become a cult film and has become attached to the image of the city. Everyone who arrives in Odessa goes to take a selfie on the Potemkin Stairs, which descend to the port; but during this period you do not make your way there for nothing, because the embankment is closed as a military zone, neither the stairs nor the statue of Duke Richelieu can be approached.

The new statue of Catherine, abbreviated “Founders” in the vain hope of reducing social tension, has angered all the protesters in recent years, from anti-Kremlin public groups to Cossack hundreds, patriotic Orthodox popes, nationalists or artists with flash mob projects. There have been many petitions for its removal, the most interesting being a 2022 petition asking to replace it with a statue of American porn actor Billy Herrington. Since he collected 26,000 signatures, i.e. above the legal limit of 25,000, President Zelensky was obliged to give an answer within three months. What did the man do on August 1, during a break at the front, when he again sent a request to the local council with a mysterious resolution “to consider the raised issue in accordance with local competence” and taking into account the current legislation, which provides for “cleaning public space from objects and monuments “items related to the Russian-imperial and Soviet heritage that support Russian propaganda and anti-Ukrainian narratives.”

Well, that’s it, but what about a gay porn actor from the US who has no connection to the city? It is not clear why, but all commentators agreed that it was very much in line with the unique and subversive spirit of Odessa. In any case, this year the monument to Catherine was covered with more plywood, and not so much because of the explosions, like other statues around the city, but mainly to protect it from the anger of local residents, which carries graffiti.

The fact that the capital of the region, which is usually considered more Russian-speaking and inclined to Moscow, has so quickly returned to Ukrainian patriotism in a few years is a great example of how a civil nation is being built before our eyes, despite ethnic divisions. Back in 2014, Odessans rejected local sabotage that tried to reproduce the Crimean scenario; and this year they were all body and soul – Ukrainians, Russians, Moldovans, Jews – against Russia, coming out with arms in hand to protect the beaches and the port in the moments of balance in the spring. Regardless of language, people seem to prioritize democratic values ​​and reject Putin’s idea of ​​”Russian Peace” – essentially that ethnicity necessarily and deterministically defines a homeland, even if it is aggressive, murderous and retrograde.

Odesa also has what it was based on: it has always prided itself on its independence as a cosmopolitan southern city, with traditions separate from Moscow and Kyiv, its freedom from porto-franco and a fun smuggling zone (as a touch of color, there is a special museum that also covers the Soviet period). This is undoubtedly an imperial city, founded by order of Catherine – although the tsarina never visited it – but on a Turkish-Tatar settlement that has disappeared from official history and in which at the end of the 19th century, when the statue with the problem was inaugurated, only half of the inhabitants was native, – the Russians said. And despite the emphasized Russification in the 20th century, in the referendum for the independence of Ukraine in 1991, the Odesa region voted 85% “FOR”, which should give reason for thinking to a lesser sociopath than Putin.

In short, the aggression launched by the Kremlin in February 2022 – that is, the second stage of the war launched against Ukraine in 2014 – made Russia so toxic that even Odessans with an ambiguous identity could no longer remain neutral and apolitical, but signed up for national redefinition efforts. And these are not just ceremonial words spoken in public; Russian speakers in Odessa confirm your change in private conversations, over coffee: they no longer want to deal with Putin’s Russia and want to rebuild a democratic civil culture of the Russian language, because it did not exist yet. They will no longer have statues that will be instrumentalized for imperial construction: see the photo of the ceremonial unveiling of the bust of Catherine by the Transnistrian separatists in Grigoriopol; in Tiraspol, of course, there is.

The great innovation that Ukraine has made this year in Eastern Europe is that it has taken the polemic out of the old framework of anti-communism vs. of communism, which suits Putin just fine because it masks the true stakes of this war and allows him to say that he is not the USSR. Read more at Contributors.ro