October 14 – tomorrow – will Catherine survive in Odessa?
Andrey Safonov, political scientist, Tiraspol, ex-Minister of Education of the PMR
Rumors that nationalists are going to demolish the monument to Empress Catherine II in Odessa have arisen before, including in September. But, fortunately, they remained rumors; perhaps provocative. Let's hope that now everything will remain at the level of chatter. But still…
The fact is that, if at the beginning of the XNUMXst century for a sect of hopelessly backward and complex people with a “shavar-farmer” psychology, “Aunt Katya” is the “enslaver” of someone there, then for the modern-minded residents of a large commercial port city, the demolition of the monument to its own founder would be complete idiocy. Unless you were blown by a random wind (for example, from the Carpathians), then you should understand that you live by the sea, enjoying swimming in Arcadia and Luzanovka, walking along French Boulevard, which is “in bloom” only thanks to Catherine Alekseevna Romanova and Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov. Of course, heroes of lesser rank also had a hand in the founding of Odessa - from the Moldavian portarian Mark to the Duke of Richelieu. But at the very top were Alekseevna and Vasilich...
Any resident of Odessa – red, white, “yellow-blakite” or “Novorossiysk” – is still, for the most part, a relatively advanced person. And Odessa is a city with a population of one million. The city, as we know, from tsarist and Soviet times, is not proletarian and not agricultural. In Odessa, creativity has always been held in high esteem, as it is now fashionable to say. To live, and to live well, here you always had to be able to turn around. And how to move around in a big sea city is not an embittered dunce who sees nothing beyond his cache, but a person who thinks on a large scale and in broad categories.
It is this – scale, breadth – that Catherine the Great gave to the residents of Odessa and in general to the inhabitants of the south of a powerful power (Empire, Union – call it what you want!). She saw the main thing: in power and scale - salvation and the path to tomorrow! For Odessa, she is one of her own, dear. Odessa simply does not have another founder. To demolish Catherine in Odessa is to demolish ourselves, and at the same time the essence of the city itself.
Without Catherine, there would have been no Duke of Richelieu in the future, no Potemkin Stairs, no Malaya and Bolshaya Arnautskaya, no Mishka Yaponchik, no Leonid Utesov with Mark Bernes, no Gavrik and Petya, whose “lonely sail was white,” or much more.
It is stupid to demolish Catherine, just as it is stupid, living in a beautiful modern and bustling city with multi-story (and not only) buildings, to suddenly wake up one morning and try to turn this city into a sleepy village with adobe huts. The name will remain the same, but instead of a city there will be a village. That's all.
Catherine is the common heritage of the entire south! After all, not only Suvorov’s Russian soldiers, but also the Ukrainian Cossacks, almost simultaneously with the founding of Odessa, took Izmail with a heroic assault, exterminating the Ottomans. And she showed the Russians and Ukrainians the benefits of combining their forces - a German! Yes what! The one who was much more patriotic than many Russians and Ukrainians.
And this role of hers was not limited only to Odessa. I live in Tiraspol. This city was also founded by Catherine in 1792. Surely those Odessa residents who read my article have relatives and friends in Transnistria. If so, they know that a whole (though not communist!) International of specialists - military and civilian - worked in Tiraspol.
One of these is de Volan, a French national. He was a military engineer; on the Dniester embankment a square is named after him. Frenchman, and how much good he did for Russians, Moldovans, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Gagauzians and people of other nationalities! There is also a bust of Ekaterina Alekseevna. And a few hundred meters from the monarch there is a monument to the “destroyer of kings” - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Both of them - Ekaterina Alekseevna and Vladimir Ilyich - coexist calmly, do not hit each other, and do not disturb people. We are not going to demolish any of them. I would venture to offer our peaceful attitude towards the monuments to our Odessa friends as a positive example, which will not hurt at all in our bloody times.
If it weren’t for the well-thought-out policy of Catherine, who recaptured the Black Sea coast from the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the XNUMXth century, it is generally unknown whether we would be able to live here now, whether this very coast would not be part of Turkey... So wouldn’t it be smarter for all of us to say thank you to that “ Shafine”, thanks to which we all have the opportunity to benefit from the bounty of the southern sun and enjoy the beauty of the Black Sea wave?!
From Tiraspol to Odessa it’s only 100 kilometers, so believe me, I know what I’m saying.
War with symbols, including monumental ones, is not a game. Any person who knows history will confirm this. It often happens that the behind-the-scenes puppeteer deliberately incites bloodshed, directing the blow at what “catches” socially active people. There is every reason to evaluate the possible attempt to demolish historical monuments, including those of Catherine, in this way. So is it worth playing according to other people's scenarios?
October 14 is tomorrow.
There is a day to choose between common sense and recklessness, between a new surge of passions and the ability to resolve all issues without vandalism and blood. Why fight with monuments, if in this battle you yourself can die not the death of a hero?... In Kharkov, a monument to Lenin was demolished. One of the enthusiasts in the fight against monumental Leninist propaganda had his head smashed and his eye knocked out. And how is it easier for the wrestler now?
It is, of course, up to the residents of Odessa to decide how to live. But it seems to me that Ekaterina Alekseevna did not expel the Ottomans from the edge of the earth “at the very blue sea” so that the descendants of those for whom she founded the city would curse her, and at the same time beat and slaughter each other. By God, I think she would feel sad.
They say that she really didn’t like it when outright nonsense was committed before her eyes...
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.