Russia, Ukraine Struggle for Historical Supremacy
A view of Borovitskaya Square in Moscow.
A giant bronze statue of Prince Vladimir was brought into Borovitskaya Square, located only a few hundred meters from the Kremlin, on October 17. After completion, workers concealed the statue under a frame in preparation for its official unveiling on November 4, the Day of National Unity in Russia.
The Russian Military Historical Society put forward plans for the statue of the Orthodox saint last year to mark 1,000 years since his death in the year 1015. The Society proposed to put the 24-meter statue on a 7-meter pedestal atop the landmark Sparrow Hills, overlooking Moscow from the south and standing in front of the Stalinist skyscrapers of Moscow State University.
The proposal stirred rarely seen dissent among Muscovites. Fifty-five thousand Muscovites signed a petition against the monument, declaring it “illegal and dangerous.” They cited Moscow State University’s protected area status. Additionally, they claimed that the proposed location was unstable and a zone of “heightened geological risk.”
Opposition politician Alexey Navalny’s anti-corruption organization highlighted possible bribery, disregard of construction codes in regards to the original proposal, and the selection of a construction company for the project before competition could be measured.
While the monument might have gathered some local ire, it has caused a greater stir internationally with neighboring Ukraine. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, both nationalities have sought to obtain the cultural legacy of Prince Vladimir, who serves as the forefather of both Russia and Ukraine.
On the one hand, Ukrainians see the Prince, known as Volodymyr in Ukrainian, as the founder of their nation, as he was the ruler of Kiev at the turn of the previous millennium. The Romanov dynasty constructed an equally large statue of Volodymyr on Volodymyrska Hill overlooking Kiev in 1853 to recognize the city’s status as the cultural and religious progenitor for the eastern Slavic peoples.
For the Ukrainians, Volodymyr’s monument in Moscow is a denial of Ukrainian ownership of eastern Slav, or Rus’, culture. According to the Ukrainian interpretation, Volodymyr was the first Slav, meaning that the Ukrainians are true Slavs because of his rule in Kiev.
Vitaly Portinkov, of the pro-Ukrainian Euromaidan Press, stated that “the plan is ... to steal Prince Volodymyr from Ukraine and make him the main monument in the capital of a country to which he — the man who baptized Ukraine — has absolutely no connection.”
On the other hand, Russians see Vladimir as part of their cultural legacy because his Kingdom of Kiev eventually became part of the Tsardom of Russia through a series of complex successions. Putin has tried to seize ownership of Slavdom in the last few years. The creation of the Day of National Unity in 2005 was a move by Putin to demonstrate Russia’s power as the superior Slav nation. The unveiling of Vladimir’s statue on this holiday, which marks the defeat of the Polish outside Moscow in 1612, seeks to emphasize Russia’s dominance over and ownership of Slavdom.
The annexation of Crimea further fueled the cultural conflict between the two nations. The location of Vladimir’s baptism is Cherson, Crimea, the place that marks the origin of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Putin stated on a trip to Cherson that “it was this spiritual soil that first, and for all time, our ancestors became aware of themselves as a single people.”
Jamie Rann, of the London-based Calvert Journal, laid out the intents of the Vladimir statue, saying, “Ukraine belongs to Russia and Russia belongs to the Orthodox Church.”
The war between Ukraine and Russia is not just being fought in the fields of Donbass, but also on the intellectual front. It is a fight for cultural domination with Prince Vladimir at the heart of that struggle.