Harman Patil (Editor)

Demolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine

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Demolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine

The demolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in modern Ukraine started during the fall of the Soviet Union. During Euromaidan it has become a widespread phenomenon and dubbed by Ukrainians Leninopad (Ленінопад), a pun literally translated as "Leninfall", with the coinage of "xxx"+"пад" being akin to English "xxx" + "fall" as in "waterfall", "snowfall", etc.

An early removal of Lenin's monument happened on August 1, 1990 in Chervonograd, Western Ukraine, then still in the Ukrainian SSR. Under the popular pressure the monument was dismantled, formally with the purpose of moving elsewhere. The same happened on August 8 in Ternopil and on August 17 in Kolomyya.

In 1991 Ukraine had 5,500 Lenin monuments. By December 2015 1,300 Lenin monuments were still standing. More than 700 Lenin monuments were removed and/or destroyed between February 2014 and December 2015.

On 15 May 2015, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a bill into law that started a six-month period for the removal of communist monuments (excluding World War II monuments) and the mandatory renaming of settlements with names related to Communism.

A website "Raining Lenins" tracks the statistics of the fall of Lenin statues in Ukraine.

Communist monuments toppled during Euromaidan

Euromaidan protestors toppled several statues of Vladimir Lenin in Ukrainian cities. Some estimates said that more than 90 statues were toppled. In December 2015 The Ukrainian Week calculated that 376 Lenin monuments were removed and/or destroyed in February 2014.

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.

The removal of the monuments evoked mixed feelings among Ukrainian population. In some cases, like in Kharkiv early 2014, pro-Russian Ukrainian crowds protected the monuments, including members of the communist and socialist parties, as well as veterans of World War II and the Afghan wars. Nevertheless, the Statue of Lenin in Kharkiv was toppled on September 28, 2014.

This is a partial list:

References

Demolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine Wikipedia