The demolition of monuments to

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...

in Ukraine started during the

fall of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

and continued to a small extent throughout the 1990s, mostly in some western Ukrainian towns, though by 2013 most Lenin statues in Ukraine remained standing. During

Euromaidan Euromaidan (; uk, Євромайдан, translit=Yevromaidan, lit=Euro Square, ), or the Maidan Uprising, was a wave of Political demonstration, demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protes ...

in 2013-2014, the destruction of statues of Lenin become a widespread phenomenon and became popularly known in Ukraine as Leninopad (

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

: Ленінопад,

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: Ленинопад), a pun literally translated as " Leninfall", with the coinage of "-пад" being akin to English words suffixed with "fall" as in "waterfall", "snowfall", etc.

History

Destroying of Lenin on the Independence square, Kiev

The demolition of Lenin monuments in Ukraine happened in four stages. During the 1990s, more than 2,000 Lenin monuments were demolished in Galicia and Volyn, at the turn of the 1990–2000s more than 600 Lenin monuments were removed in western and central areas, in 2005–2008, more than 600 were demolished mainly in central areas, and in 2013–2014, 552 monuments were demolished. The first wave of demolitions of Lenin monuments happened in Western Ukraine in 1990–1991. On 1 August 1990, in

Chervonohrad Chervonohrad ( uk, Червоноград, ; former Polish name: ''Krystynopol'', uk, Кристинопіль, 'Krystynopil', german: Krisnipolye) is a mining city and the administrative center of Chervonohrad Raion, Lviv Oblast of western Ukr ...

a Lenin monument was demolished for the first time in the USSR. Under popular pressure the monument was dismantled, formally with the purpose of moving elsewhere. That same year, Lenin monuments were dismantled in Ternopil, Kolomyia, Nadvirna, Borislav, Drohobych, Lviv and other cities of Galicia.Volodymyr Semkiv
"Падай, Леніне, падай"
("Fall, Lenin, Fall", retrieved 9 June 2017) In 1991, Ukraine had 5,500 Lenin monuments. In November 2015, approximately 1,300 Lenin monuments were still standing.Out of Sight
,

The Ukrainian Week ''The Ukrainian Week'' ( uk, Український Тиждень, translit=Ukrainskyi Tyzhden) is an illustrated weekly magazine covering politics, economics and the arts and aimed at the socially engaged Ukrainian-language reader. It provides ...

(28 December 2015) More than 700 Lenin monuments were removed and/or destroyed between February 2014 and December 2015. On 9 April 2015, the

Ukrainian parliament The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ( uk, Верхо́вна Ра́да Украї́ни, translit=, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy, translation=Supreme Council of Ukraine, Ukrainian abbreviation ''ВРУ''), often simply Verkhovna Rada or just Rada, is the ...

passed legislation on decommunization. On 15 May 2015,

President of Ukraine The president of Ukraine ( uk, Президент України, Prezydent Ukrainy) is the head of state of Ukraine. The president represents the nation in international relations, administers the foreign political activity of the state, condu ...

Petro Poroshenko Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko ( uk, Петро́ Олексі́йович Пороше́нко, ; born 26 September 1965) is a Ukrainian businessman and politician who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019. Poroshenko ser ...

signed this bill into law that started a six-month period for the removal of communist monuments (excluding

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

monuments) and the mandatory renaming of settlements with names related to

Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

.Poroshenko signed the laws about decomunization
.

Ukrayinska Pravda ''Ukrainska Pravda'' ( uk, Українська правда, lit=Ukrainian Truth) is a Ukrainian online newspaper founded by Georgiy Gongadze on 16 April 2000 (the day of the Ukrainian constitutional referendum). Published mainly in Ukraini ...

. 15 May 2015Poroshenko signs laws on denouncing Communist, Nazi regimes
,

Interfax-Ukraine The Interfax-Ukraine ( uk, Інтерфакс-Україна) is a Kyiv-based Ukraine, Ukrainian independent news agency founded in 1992. The company does not belong to the Russian news corporation Interfax Information Services. The company pub ...

. 15 May 20Poroshenko: Time for Ukraine to resolutely get rid of Communist symbols
,

UNIAN The UNIAN or Ukrainian Independent Information Agency of News ( uk, Українське Незалежне Інформаційне Агентство Новин, УНІАН, translit=Ukrayins'ke Nezalezhne Informatsiyne Ahentstvo Novyn) is a ...

. 17 May 2015Goodbye, Lenin: Ukraine moves to ban communist symbols
,

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

(14 April 2015) On 16 January 2017, the

Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance The Ukrainian Institute of National Memory ( uk, Український Інститут Національної Пам’яті, UINM), also translated as the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, is the central executive body operating un ...

announced that 1,320 Lenin monuments were dismantled during decommunization. A website "Raining Lenins" tracks the statistics of the fall of Lenin statues in Ukraine. On 17 March 2016, the largest Lenin monument at the unoccupied territory of Ukraine, 19.8 meters high, was dismantled in

Zaporizhia Zaporizhzhia ( uk, Запоріжжя) or Zaporozhye (russian: Запорожье) is a city in southeast Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. It is the Capital city, administrative centre of Zaporizhzhia Oblast. Zapor ...

. In between the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by the Russian Federation and 28 September 2014, the largest Lenin monument at the unoccupied territory was standing in

Term

The start of the "Leninopad" in its mass was laid by the demolition of the Lenin monument in Kyiv on the Bessarabian Square. The event took place on 8 December 2013 at around 6:00 pm. Even more people began to massively destroy monuments of the Soviet past after reported about numbers of Euromaidan activists who died during the power struggles in Kyiv. In fact, several protesters claim that they are "depriving their settlements as the symbol of totalitarianism, Russian supremacy and opening the way for a new Ukraine." The police, for their part, have not launched criminal proceedings on the fact of hooliganism and vandalism.

Communist monuments toppled during Euromaidan

protesters toppled several statues of

in Ukrainian cities. Some estimates said that more than 90 statues were toppled. In December 2015,

calculated that 376 Lenin monuments were removed or destroyed in February 2014. This is a partial list:

Reactions

Domestic

The removal of the monuments evoked mixed feelings among the Ukrainian population. In some cases, like in

Kharkiv Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and the Afghan wars. The Statue of Lenin in Kharkiv was toppled on 28 September 2014. Late October 2014, then Kharkiv Governor Ihor Baluta admitted that he thought that the majority of Kharkiv residents had not wanted the statue removed, but said "there was hardly any protest afterward either, which is quite telling". In January 2015, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine announced that it would encourage any public initiatives related to the cleansing of Ukraine from monuments to figures of the communist past. According to

Vyacheslav Kyrylenko Vyacheslav Anatoliiovych Kyrylenko ( uk, В'ячеслав Анатолійович Кириленко) is a Ukrainian politician; former Minister of Labor and Social Policy, Vice Prime Minister, former party leader of Our Ukraine and former ...

, its department will initiate the removal from the State Register of Immovable Monuments of Ukraine and all the monuments mentioned there, related to communist figures. According to a 2022 study, the monument removals mobilized supporters of Soviet legacy parties to turn out in greater numbers in Ukrainian elections until the start of the war in Eastern Ukraine when the monument removals stopped being a contentious issue.

International

According to Blue Shield National Committee, some of the monuments might be listed as national heritage sites, and therefore their dismantling requires checking if they were actually listed as such.

References

External links

Map and lists of damaged monuments

Raining Lenins
{{Russian intervention in Ukraine Euromaidan Destroyed sculptures Statues in Ukraine Demolished buildings and structures in Ukraine Anti-communism in Ukraine 2013 in Ukraine 2014 in Ukraine Decommunization in Ukraine Lenin, Vladimir in Ukraine Derussification Decolonization Anti-Soviet resistance Monuments and memorials to Vladimir Lenin