Destroyed in Ukraine, protected and restored in Russia, statues of Lenin reflect the radical break between a country on the path to democracy, and a bellicose dictatorship that decided to invade. Drawing on numerous photographs, Dominique Colas recounts this memorial conflict.
There were once thousands of statues of Lenin in Ukraine, there are now none, except in the regions annexed by Russia. These communist symbols were systematically torn down after 2014. The Ukrainians even gave a name to this gesture of liberation – "Leninopad."
At the same time, Vladimir Poutine was re-writing history in Russia, even rehabilitating Tsarist and Soviet expansionism through the use of ethno-nationalist, but also ostentatiously military and religious, statues.
Introduction
Chapitre 1
Destins divergents des statues de Lénine
Chapitre 2
Lénine est-il, comme le dit Poutine, « l'auteur et l'architecte » de l'Ukraine ?
Chapitre 3
Les statues de Lénine en URSS, en Russie, au Bélarus et en Ukraine
Chapitre 4
Poutine révise l’histoire et impose la mémoire
Chapitre 5
Poutine promeut la mémoire militaire et religieuse de la Russie
Les statues, les sculpteurs et leurs dates
Transcriptions russe et ukrainienne des noms de ville
Bibliographie sélective
Sélection de sources iconographiques
Crédits photographiques