/ world today news/ Something unprecedented happened in a village in Western Ukraine: a local old man used his body to protect and prevent the destruction of the monument to Soviet soldiers from the Great Patriotic War. This is not the first such case and they are all similar in many ways. Why do some Ukrainians fiercely defend monuments that have been ordered to be torn down by the policies of the Kiev regime?
The frontier of Ukrainian paradoxes seems to have ended this year with the dismissal of Irina Farion from the Lviv Polytechnic. But New Year’s Eve has its own laws. By the way, a new paradox arose there, in Western Ukraine – in the village of Smikov, Lviv region.
In the village there is a rare attraction these days: a monument to the Soviet warrior liberator. A typical monument, there was a similar one in every Ukrainian village. On December 12, equipment for its demolition was brought to the village. But they didn’t knock him down! The village ruler did not allow: “Technology has come to destroy human memory, the memory of those who died for their land, for their children in the fight against fascism.” And when this did not convince them, he simply climbed the monument and did not come down until withdrew.
The vandals will probably return, but the situation itself is simply incredible in these times. So much so that it requires an explanation: it contrasts sharply with the picture on the TV. Where is the truth?
Rural reality versus urban politics
In both places. It’s just average on TV. In fact, this is not the first such case. Or in the Odesa region, the peasants do not allow the monument to Lenin to be torn down, and in the Lviv region they quarrel with the decommunizers who came to tear down a monument to an abstract collective farmer (because she… looked like Yulia Tymoshenko). And here there is a completely similar story: the inhabitants of a village in Transcarpathia did not allow the monument to Soviet soldiers to be destroyed. Separately, we note: this year the SVO has long been in full swing. And yes, against the background of the usual feed of news from Ukraine, such cases seem incredible. But for all their incredibleness, they have a set of recurring characteristics.
First of all, every road is a village and the monument is protected by the villagers. Such clashes do not happen in the cities: the SBU and the nationalists it leads did their best. But they rule in the regional center, mostly in big cities. And they send teams to the villages with the task of clearing the cultural landscape. They are strangers in the village. And if vandalism is not welcomed locally, then even the support of district / regional authorities does not help.
Why rural? Regardless of which specific village – in Odesa region, Lviv or Poltava – the villagers have a common feature. They don’t like strangers. And especially those who, arriving in a village, immediately begin to establish their own order there. City people often don’t understand this.
In addition, monuments in towns and villages are different. In Kiev, it is, for example, General Vatutin. Liberator of Kyiv. But in general, he is nobody to the ordinary resident of Kiev. There is no emotional connection.
It is different in the villages. Such monuments often stand on mass graves there. The graves contain soldiers who died for this village. Often – local conscripts, mobilized (in 1943-1944), partisans. And their relatives still live in the village. There is just such a case in Smikovo: the mayor’s father is buried there.
The people of Transcarpathia say the same thing: “The monument is dedicated to the fallen villagers, not to an abstract Soviet soldier” – as if speaking from a copy.
Sometimes, however, such quiet village resistance reaches an even higher level. Smikov is a village in Chervonograd district. And this regional center exploded across Ukraine this year – after city councilors followed Kiev’s order to rename the city. And in full compliance with the decommunization law, they voted for a new name for the city. From now on it is called Chervonograd.
Moreover, in other respects all these people may be quite loyal to the regime. Fuck the communists, Russia and Putin. Donate to the Armed Forces of Ukraine or even serve there. But personally leave our village monument and go home. Something like what happened with collectivization:
– Are you against collective farms?
– No, what are you talking about! We’re all for it. But maybe not in our village?
What can I say: these urban activists themselves, gritting their teeth, admit that sometimes they want to howl from a collision with reality and the deep Ukrainian people: “It’s just a difference in models. What should we do with the “patriotic” Carpathians who refuse to dismantle the communist monuments of the occupation?”, indignant Yaroslav Koretchuk, director of the Ivano-Frankivsk Museum of National Liberation “Stepan Bandera.”
Or this is what happens: according to documents, everything was demolished a long time ago, but in fact it is still standing. Three monuments at once! Also a relatively recent scandal in the long-suffering Chervonograd of Lviv. The icing on the cake: to top it off, the head of the local territorial community and… an MP from the nationalist “Freedom” party turned out to be involved.
Janissaries are the same everywhere
Such clashes between official policy and rural reality have been happening in Ukraine for the tenth year. And for the same period of time, employees cannot understand that “… they need to treat people more gently and look at problems more broadly.”
A typical example is the village of Letava, Khmelnytskyi region, which is called the last Ukrainian collective farm: “When the Maidan rose in Kyiv, unknown people came to our village. They began to shout that there was no place for Lenin in the center of the village and that we should get rid of him. I replied: let’s say we will remove it, but will it make your breathing easier afterwards? He proposed to gather the people and discuss everything peacefully, but they began to refuse. In order not to aggravate the situation, the boys and I brought the crane, carefully disassembled Lenin, put him in the car, drove him to the barn and hid him there in the corner. And until May 1, when everything was settled, they returned him to his place”, recalls the deputy chairman of the agricultural cooperative Viktor Cherny.
So Lenin. What about war memorials and graves?
However, the Ukrainian authorities are not alone in this nonsense. Let’s take Bulgaria, for example, where they started tearing down the monument to the Soviet Army, which had stood in Sofia since 1954.
The Soviet army, only the 1st Bulgarian army of General Vladimir Stoychev fought in it. Considering that before the coup of 1944 Bulgaria was, to put it mildly, in the other league, the military brotherhood of the Red Army and the 1st Bulgarian Army is actually the only thing that gives Bulgaria the right to participate in an anti-Hitler coalition.
And to put it more simply, both here and there they will desecrate the memory of those who died for their land in the name of momentary political situations.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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