Kyiv: Fyodor Dostoevsky can be seen walking the streets of Kyiv. The arrival of Andy Warhol is imminent.

By tearing down monuments and renaming hundreds of streets to honor its own artists, poets, soldiers, independence leaders and this year's war heroes, among others, Ukraine is attempting to erase the remnants of Soviet and Russian influence from its public. is taking forward. Blank space.

Ukraine's leaders have turned a campaign that was once focused on reclaiming its communist past into "de-Russification" after the February 24 invasion of Moscow that killed or injured countless numbers of civilians and soldiers. Destroyed buildings and infrastructure, and killed or injured. untold numbers more.

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Streets celebrating the Bolshevik Revolution or revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin were largely gone; Now Russia, not a legacy of the Soviet Union, is the enemy.

In addition to serving as retribution for crimes committed by Russia, it also serves as an affirmation of Ukrainian identity by paying tribute to some notable figures who have been largely forgotten.

Many Ukrainians believe that Russia, through the Soviet Union, permanently cemented its dominance over its smaller, southwestern neighbor and consigned its artists, poets and military heroes to relative obscurity compared to more famous Russians. Gave.

Even as their future hangs in the balance, Ukrainians are rewriting history, as some claim, winners write history. In both significant and subtle ways, their sense of national identity may experience an unprecedented upsurge.

Volodymyr Zelensky, the president, has started wearing a black T-shirt with the words "I am Ukrainian" written on it.

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He is one of the few Ukrainians whose mother tongue is Russian. Now they avoid it or at least use it. The western part of the country, which initially eschewed Russian and Soviet imagery, has traditionally spoken more Ukrainian.

A significant part of northern, eastern and central Ukraine is changing its language. A statue of Alexander Pushkin, another legend of Russian literature like 19th-century Dostoevsky, was moved to the eastern city of Dnieper on Friday. Inadvertently wrapping the crane strap under the statue's chin.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced this month that about 30 more streets in the city would get new names.

According to Volodymyr Prokopiev, deputy head of the Kyiv City Council, Ukraine's "de-communization" policy has been implemented since 2015 in a "soft" manner to upset the sensibilities of the country's Russian-speaking and even pro-Moscow population. can be avoided.

"After the war, everything was different. The Russian lobby is now helpless—in fact, it doesn't even exist, according to Prokopiev, who gave an interview to The Associated Press from his office on Khreshchatyk Street, a boulevard Capital. "Renaming these streets is like erasing the Soviet Union's propaganda against Ukraine."

The Russians have attempted to impose their culture and supremacy on the territories they occupied during the war.

There are "dangers in rewriting periods in history where Ukrainians and Russians cooperated and built things together," warned Professor Andrew Wilson of University College London. "I think the whole thing about de-imperializing Russian culture should be to specify where we were blind before – often in the West."

According to Wilson, the Ukrainians are "pursuing a very broad strategy.

He cited Pushkin, a 19th-century Russian writer who may have angered some Ukrainians.

For example, the Cossacks, an ethnic Slavic group in Eastern Europe, "mean freedom to them, while Pushkin portrays them as cruel, barbaric and archaic," according to him. Wilson, whose fifth edition of the book "Russian Civilization: A History" "The Ukrainians" was recently released.

According to Prokopiev, Kyiv conducted an online survey as part of its program and received 280,000 responses in a single day. An expert panel then reviews the submissions, and finally, city council members and neighborhood residents give their final approval.

The names of nearly 200 streets in Kyiv were changed earlier this year as part of a "de-communization" program. According to Prokopiev, the same number of streets have been renamed in 2022 alone, and another 100 are expected to do so soon.

Ukraine's avant-garde poet Bohdan-Ihor Antonych will be honored with a street named after philosopher Friedrich Engels. A street named "Friendship of Peoples" will be dedicated to Ukrainian independence pioneer Mykola Mikhnovsky, making reference to the various ethnic groups that made up the USSR.

Another street honours the "Heroes of Mariupol," defenders of the port city that ultimately fell in the Sea of Azov who resisted a devastating Russian campaign for months. 

As a tribute to a 24-year-old civic and environmental activist who was killed in the conflict, a street originally named for the Russian city of Volgograd is now known as Roman Ratushnyi Street.

Even though a small street in northern Kyiv still bears Dostoevsky's name, it will soon be renamed in honour of Andy Warhol, the late American Pop Art pioneer whose parents had roots in Slovakia, just across Ukraine's western border.

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Almost 40 years on Dostoevsky Street resident Valeriy Sholomitsky said he was undecided.

"Here, there are fewer than 20 homes. That's a very small number, Sholomitsky remarked as he cleared the street of snow in front of a dilapidated address sign bearing the name of the Russian author. Warhol, he claimed, was "our artist" and had ties to eastern Europe:

Now, he predicted, "it will be even better."

Because we used to name many streets incorrectly, perhaps it is for the best that we are changing them now, he said.