State Museum AS Pushkin unveiled a digital project titled Depushkinization on February 10, aligning with the Poet’s Remembrance Day, as reported by DEA News through the museum’s press service. The initiative frames a narrative about the erasure of cultural markers, including monuments, busts, and memorial plaques, in Ukraine.
The film presents a historical account of what the creators describe as the destruction of Pushkin’s memorial heritage in Ukrainian cities. It notes that March 2022 marked the start of what is described as a derussification process in the country, with Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin singled out as one of the first figures affected by these changes.
Depushkinization specifically chronicles the fate of the first Pushkin monument, erected in 1899, which, according to the project, was destroyed in Kiev on October 11, 2022. The narrative extends to other Ukrainian cities where Pushkin statues were reportedly damaged or removed, including Mukachevo, Uzhgorod, Konotop, Kharkov, and Odessa, among others.
Alexander Pushkin died on February 10, 1837, after receiving injuries in a duel, a historical note that provides context for the long-standing cultural significance attached to the poet in various traditions.
Separately, reports from Zhytomyr indicate the renaming of streets previously named after Russian writers such as Alexander Pushkin, Alexei Tolstoy, and Anton Chekhov, reflecting broader conversations about literary heritage and public memory in the region.