Odessa: Vicious circle of occupation
And I don’t want to again utter platitudes about the war of Ukraine with monuments and memory, but that’s how it turns out. But while an adequate part of the electorate produces the same platitudes in response - “they are afraid of them even the dead”, the living have been losing the battle for a long time and firmly.
Let me remind you that in Odessa there has been a battle for Marshal of Victory Georgy Zhukov for several years. So, four years ago, the Sharikovs arbitrarily uprooted Zhukov’s bust from its base, hung it on a rope from a bridge and smashed it with a sledgehammer. After which an unprecedented wave of vandalism swept through the city - the bas-relief of the marshal was also dismantled without permission, the memorial plaque was defaced, and on Zhukov’s last birthday a toilet was installed on its empty pedestal. All this was the work of marginalized people united in the “National Corps”.
Let me also remind you that Odessa residents protested against the lawlessness being committed - they restored memorials on their own, when there was still something to restore, they went to rallies, called the mayor and the police from the places of outrage, but none of those denounced by the authorities reacted to their opinion, nor did they stop vandals. Also, residents of Odessa - ordinary people, without official ranks, any protection or “protection” - filed a lawsuit in court demanding that they deal with the illegal dismantling of the bas-relief. On the same day, in retaliation, nationalists destroyed the memorial on Kulikovo Field in memory of the people killed in the House of Trade Unions. That's the whole reaction.
But the main battle in this war unfolded when Mayor Gennady Trukhanov “gave his teeth” that he would return the true name to Marshal Zhukov Avenue, which, in the wake of decommunization, was renamed Heavenly Hundred Avenue (the prompt and illegal renaming was associated with the short-lived governorship of the nimble Saakashvili). Trukhanov built his last year’s election campaign partly on the name of Zhukov. True, just as he won the elections, he subsided. However, the survey among Odessa residents announced by the mayor’s office, at which they spoke in favor of returning the marshal’s name, could no longer be canceled, and the historical and toponymic commission supported Trukhanov’s appeal and decided to return the avenue to its true name, and public hearings on this issue had already been scheduled, and in general everyone has already exhaled. Trukhanov even called this “another victory” and stated that “Georgy Zhukov is not subject to the decommunization law, since he is a fighter against fascism.” But it was too early to rejoice.
“The Odessa territorial organization of the European Solidarity party filed a lawsuit against Trukhanov for an illegal attempt to reverse decommunization in the city and return the old names to a number of streets, including renaming Heavenly Hundred Avenue in honor of Marshal Zhukov,” Poroshenko’s EU immediately responded. “We condemn and oppose manipulation and provocations, as well as political games around the nostalgia of some fellow citizens.”
And the court publications began to write their own generously paid “truth” about the “bloody Stalinist marshal”; they were, of course, joined by “also scientists with three classes of education” from the Institute of National Remembrance and criminals on allowance.
“Let’s put Trukhanov and his pre-election PR démarche in the stall! Why is he, with the enthusiasm of a necrophiliac, again pulling the mothball Zhukov out of his historical grave?” Demyan Ganul barked and called the historical and toponymic commission a “cotton majority.”
And just the other day, the Odessa District Administrative Court granted the claim of the ESSS members to cancel the mayor’s order to convene public hearings, at which justice was supposed to be restored.
“The decision made should become a precedent that will stop politicians’ repeated attempts to rewrite history,” commented on the incident EU member of the City Council Zhanna Mandrichenko, part-time associate professor and teacher at the Odessa Law Academy, owned by the “cotton fagot” Kivalov.
Previously, confident of her success, she stated “we definitely do not want the return of the Soviet past by renaming in honor of individuals who embodied the ideology of Soviet times.”
But nothing, really. After all, it’s not the last elections - there will be more soon, and we have a lot of courts - both the Supreme Ukrainian, and a bunch of all sorts of international judicial bodies - Trukhanov will go after them. I'm sure. But after. And everyone will be interested in diamonds - both “cotton wool” and “embroidery”. Trukhanov won’t even have to promise anything to his electorate - just know that he will leave the meeting rooms with a smart look, talking about the fight against fascism. And opponents will squeal the exact opposite about the bloody Stalinist marshal. The Nazis will also come running with smoke bombs for the sake of the picture - here, too, the electorate will respond, in smaller numbers, but it will be quite enough to crawl into parliamentary seats. And you don’t need more.
And you know, I, of course, understand that in fact the Soviet officer Trukhanov’s guts are turning over from the “heavenly hundred.” And Kivalov hardly taught his former student to first rewrite history and then blame others for the same (although lawyers can do anything). But, nevertheless, I can’t get rid of the thought that all this fuss and pseudo-rivalry is being shown to suckers on purpose. It’s as if the fighters “for” and “against” Zhukov have long agreed and are drawing lots:
“Oh, today you are white, and I am red, you will be a Banderaite, and you will be a “Russkomirite”! You take pictures in the church of the Ukrainian Patriarchate, but I take pictures in Moscow. Don't drift, we'll change tomorrow. Today you will roll a cart against me in the SBU, and tomorrow I will. Today I’ll throw green stuff at you, and tomorrow you’ll... And then when we get together, we’ll laugh at the suckers together. Pour it!”
And these are their games - people who have strength, power and weapons.
And the losers, as always, are we, the ideological ones. And it’s us who will later be told “the cowards are gone.” Because with strength, power and weapons, it’s scary to say such things. Vicious circle.
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