“Decommunization Laws”, Their Practical Implementation, and Heritage Protection: Legal, Aesthetic and Ideological Controversies

UDC 323.2 (477)

Oleksandr Grytsenko

Institute for Cultural Research, National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, Kyiv.

ORCID 0000-0001-6936-7765

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37627/2311-9489-14-2018-2.148-160

Keywords: memory policy, legislation, decommunization, heritage protection, war memorials, removal of Soviet monu-ments, commemorative practices, remembrance of the World War II.

Abstract. The article deals with controversial relations between socalled ‘Decommunization Laws’ adopted by Ukraine’s Parliament on April 9, 2015, the practical implementation of decommunization policies (in particular, the legal requirement to remove many Soviet monuments from public space), on the one hand, and the existing legal framework of protection of historic monuments (whereby many Soviet monuments, in particular those commemorating ‘the Great Patriotic War’, are still legally protected), on the other hand. Various aspects of this controversy, legal, artistic and ideological, are analysed here. Also, commemorative and discourse-related changes in public remembrance of the Second World War proposed by the ‘Decommunization Laws’ are discussed in some detail; in particular, the broader concept of the war itself (not the ‘Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945’ any more, but the World War II, with emphasis on the “Ukrainian dimension’ of both the war effort and victims of war atrocities), the broader legal definition of protected war memorials, the introduction of Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation on May, 8; new official commemoration practices and symbols for May 8 and May 9, for which existing post-Soviet war memorials still remain the most common sites and finally, the inclusion of Ukrainian nationalists’ fight for national independence in the general picture of commemorated historic events. The concrete goals of the decommunization as defined in the four laws of April 9, 2015. In particular, more than 2000 Soviet monuments were removed from public spaces. Politically, the decommunization of 2015–2018 has not been an all-encompassing process of ideological and cultural purge but rather an All-Ukrainian ritual of symbolic liberation from the burden of Soviet totalitarian past

Author Biography.

Oleksandr Grytsenko, PhD, Institute for Cultural Research of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine, Kyiv.

grytsenko2908@gmail.com

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PDF (Ukrainian)

Published: November 22, 2018.

Vol 14 No 2 (2018).

Section: MUSEOLOGY AND PROTECTION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE.