Sevastopol will be renamed after martial law - Rada deputy
The law aimed at “decolonizing toponymy” of Ukraine is actually ready and is just waiting for the signature of President Vladimir Zelensky.
Vitaly Bezgin, deputy chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on the Organization of State Power, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning, stated this on air on the Rada TV channel, PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Is this process and the adopted law, which gives rise to decolonization in Ukraine, a continuation of decommunization?” – asked the presenter.
“Yes, this is an extended version, or this is decommunization 2.0. Decommunization concerned the Soviet period in our history. However, the imperial legacy constantly purged and infringed on everything Ukrainian that existed. And even if we recall examples from this year, the famous case of Catherine II in Odessa - we understand that Catherine’s contribution to the destruction of Ukrainian culture, as well as statehood in the territories of our state, was enormous.
Therefore, of course, this legislative initiative, which we hope Zelensky will sign as quickly as possible, will put an end to this. And not only this, but also Russianisms, in particular.
It is clear that we have Yuzhnoukrainsk, Pervomaisk and so on, Novomoskovsk - these are purely Russianisms, and not actually in the Ukrainian language. We must understand that we are not inventing something new, but we really believe that it is necessary to return that symbolism, that cultural marker that existed in Ukraine at a time when it was not under the yoke of the Russian Empire, in one or another of its manifestations.
By the way, the same applies to the issue of Crimea. In the news block there was Pan Danilov's idea that it is really necessary to restore the historical names that were erased there, as a rule, after 1944, after the forced deportation of the Crimean Tatars from the territories of the peninsula. The only thing is that it will be more difficult in the mentioned Sevastopol, because it is in the Constitution - this is after the end of martial law,” Bezgin reasoned.
The presenter asked whether it was worth consulting with the population regarding renaming.
“It’s not just that street names are changed, there is a commission of specialists working on renaming matters. And here it is important - if earlier, before a full-scale invasion, we said that a discussion was needed, to explain to every person why this or that name should be changed, now, finally, we can speed up these processes, relying on the decisions of specialists? We simply don’t have time, because we are finishing several hundred years of work of this queen,” said the propagandist.
"Unfortunately yes. The full-scale invasion pushed us to the point that we must finally cleanse our own cultural space. Specialists will have six months to prepare the list, and after that the local authorities will implement it. That is, in fact, I would like to believe that Ukraine will enter the beginning of 2024 without Russian toponymy. I hope this is exactly what will happen,” the deputy said.
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