Learning from Decommunization: What Eastern Europe Can Teach Us about Slavery-Related Urban Fallism in the United Kingdom and United States
Name
Learning_from_decommunization.pdf
Size
469.58 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
1f6a928105042955f2d7e95858532ae8
Author(s)
Vlasenko, Yegor
Ryan, Brent D.
Date Issued
January 21, 2022
Journal
Planning Theory & Practice
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Citation
The Fall of Statues? Contested Heritage, Public Space and Urban Planning: Edited by Katie McClymont. (2021). Planning Theory & Practice, 22(5), 767–795.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
This study investigates the spatial effects of the ongoing “decommunization” campaign in
Ukraine, a state-led attack on Soviet symbols and ideology in the urban space of the capital,
Kyiv. We examine decommunization through the lens of an extensive legacy of architectural,
urban design, and monumental art projects erected for the celebration of the 1500th
anniversary of the city of Kyiv held in 1982. We focus on four ideological narratives and
examine the outcomes of decommunization on four monuments. We find that
decommunization’s effect is limited; Communist symbolism has been annotated with
Ukrainian identity symbols or neglected, not demolished. We conclude that decommunization
has focused on the comparatively superficial qualities of toponomy and Lenin symbols, that
the legacy of Soviet identity in Kyiv’s cityscape is much deeper and has proved surprisingly
persistent, and that the historiography of the newly independent nation of Ukraine is still in a
process of reformation and revision.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2021.1995255
