Over 100 writers and artists urging to prevent demolition of Pushkin statue in Odesa

Source: Il Foglio

Over 115 Ukrainian and international cultural figures have written a letter to UNESCO asking to help prevent Odesa City council from “untimely dismantling of Odesa’s cultural heritage” until the end of the war, according to Il Foglio.

The petition says Odesa faces a new threat after the southern port city saw 106 of its architectural monuments damaged by Russian attacks.  It says that a removal of 19 monuments, earlier announced by city officials can leave them without its protected status as many of those landmark statues are integral parts of Odesa’s architectural ensemble in the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage zone.

The letter complains that the plan to remove the monuments that are part of  the Russian empire’s heritage  was approved without ‘public consultations’.

“The enforcement of the decolonization law has led to the removal of names of some of Odesa’s most famous figures from the streets. These include Nobel laureate Ivan Bunin, who condemned the Soviet regime in his works; Nobel nominee Konstantin Paustovsky, who criticized the Soviet revolution; Alexander Pushkin, who was exiled to Odesa for his anti-tsarist activities; and Odesa’s most famous writer, Isaac Babel, who perished in Stalin’s purges,” the signatories argue.

The letter calls on UNESCO to ask Ukrainian leaders to postpone the “decolonization decisions” in Odesa “until a more favorable time, which (…) will come soon after the war ends.”

The signatories believe that the demolition of the monuments should be delayed, as it “threatens a significant part of Odesa’s world heritage and its polyphonic cosmopolitan spirit.”

The appeal was signed by 115 people, including Isaac Babel’s daughter Lidia, his grandson Andrei Malaev-Babel, conductor Hobart Earle, sculptor Mykhailo Reva, writer Yulia Verba, singer Lesya Verba, pianist Oleksiy Botvinov, actor Boris Barsky, historian and current military officer Oleksandr Babich, conductor Oksana Lyniv, and others.