Two years ago, on April 9, 2015, Ukraine’s Parliament approved a series of historic bills that took unprecedented decisive steps to part with the country’s Soviet legacy.
One of the bills recognizes on the state level all those who fought for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century, most notably the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) that was launched in 1943 to fight both the Nazis and the Soviet Red Army. The bill, titled, “On the Legal Status and Honoring the Memory of Fighters for Ukrainian Independence in the 20th Century,” includes the UPA, the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, the Ukrainian National Republic, government bodies of Carpatho-Ukraine, the Ukrainian Helsinki Union and dozens of others. The bill attracted 271 votes (45 more than was necessary for passage). Yurii Shukhevych, the son of legendary UPA commander Roman Shukhevych and a member of the Radical Party headed by Oleh Liashko, was the author and sponsor of the bill.
The bill offers benefits to those recognized as having fought for Ukraine’s independence and requires the state to raise public awareness of the history of the liberation struggle of Ukraine, to develop and improve school textbooks on the struggle, and to organize programs and events commemorating the struggle.
A second bill, “On Condemning the Communist and National-Socialist (Nazi) Totalitarian Regimes on Ukraine and Forbidding the Propaganda of their Symbols,” required the removal of all public Soviet symbols and monuments, and the renaming of all cities and towns and villages bearing Soviet names. The largest city in Ukraine affected by the bill was Dnipropetrovsk, named after Grigory Petrovsky – a leader of the Red Terror of 1918-1923 and the Holodomor of 1932-1933. The city of 993,000 residents was renamed Dnipro.
The bill condemns the Communist and Nazi regimes as criminal and forbids the public denial of the criminal nature of those regimes, as well as forbids the public display and propaganda of their symbolism.
The measure did not stipulate the penalties for violating the prohibitions stated in the bill, but drew 254 votes in favor and was sponsored by 13 members of Parliament. However, the bill stated that all Communist symbols would be scheduled for removal within six months of President Petro Poroshenko signing the legislation, which he did on May 15, 2015.
The city of Kirovohrad, named after the Bolshevik leader Sergei Kirov, and center of the oblast center of 233,000 residents, was renamed in 2016 as Kropyvnytskyi after the writer, actor and playwright Marko Kropyvnytskyi, who was born near the city.
Volodymyr Viatrovych, who heads the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, responded to Russophile criticism from the Kremlin on the decommunization bill, noting that that other post-Communist European Union member-states had passed similar laws long ago. Mr. Viatrovych was also one of the main authors of the legislation. Other critics of the bill said that the measure could limit the study of certain parts of history during the second world war and how these events are remembered.
A third bill established May 8 as the national Day of Memory and Reconciliation, bringing Ukraine to global standards in commemorating the end of World War II., Titled, “On Remembering the Victory over Nazism in World War II,” it did not cancel the Soviet observance of May 9 as Victory Day, nor did it eliminate the official usage of the Soviet term “Great Patriotic War.”
A fourth bill was approved on April 9, 2015. “On Access to the Archives of the Repressive Bodies of the Communist Totalitarian Regime” ensured public access to Soviet documents and placed the state archives under the control of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory.
Source: “Rada approves historic bills to part with Soviet legacy,” by Zenon Zawada, The Ukrainian Weekly, April 19, 2015.