After months of planning and weeks of work, the kyiv Motherland monument it already wears the trident of Ukraine’s national arms, having removed the Soviet hammer and sickle it originally bore.
The substitution of the communist symbol for the Ukrainian national emblem is the culminating action of the arduous desovietization process and de-Russify Ukrainian monuments.
In the case of the monument to the Motherland, which will be renamed Mother Ukrainethe possibility of dismantling the immense 62-meter-high monument inaugurated in 1981 as a symbol of victory over the Nazis during World War II was considered.
However, the difficulty of destroying the monumentand its great symbolism turned into a sign of identity of the Ukrainian capital and its resistance against the Nazi invasion, led to change the plans for the resignification of the great statue and its transformation into a Ukrainian national monument.
The Ukrainian government plans to inaugurate the new monument to the Mother Ukraine on August 24, the country’s Independence Day.
The conversion of the monument to the Motherland into a monument to Mother Ukraine has been defined as a “historic event” by the Ukrainian Minister of Culture, Rostyslav Karandeev.
