The essence
The Motherland Monument was opened in 1981 and has become a symbol of Kyiv ever since. The stainless steel statue depicts a female figure holding a sword and a shield. Although one cannot imagine the panorama of the right bank of the Dnipro River without the Monument, it continuously stirred controversy in modern-day Ukraine. Some claimed it should be pulled down as its shield is notoriously emblazoned with the hammer and sickle.
The Maidan Revolution of 2014-2015 triggered a public discussion concerning the decommunization of Soviet monuments. According to the polemic battle, the Soviet Union emblem on Motherland's shield should have been replaced with the Ukrainian trident. On July 13, 2022, amidst the Russo-Ukrainian war, the decision was finally approved.
After the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, the Motherland has become an image of the Kyiv resistance. Although the hammer and sickle has yet to be removed, the Monument has already been portrayed with a trident on the shield in Ukrainian pop culture.
I took this image in the autumn of 2015 during the intense phase of the decommunization debate. The fog concealed the Soviet emblem and smoothed out the figure into a silhouette. The mist set the statue free from all ideological marks, letting the dead symbols fade away into obscurity, and purified it to the iconic outline no Kyivite would confuse with anything else.
Poor visibility conditions accidentally revealed a clue to the everlasting impact of the Motherland Monument. Originally constructed to visualize the Soviet myth of the "Great Victory", it was designed as a female warrior who would love and protect the people of Ukraine against any invader. However, the statue's scale and distinct expressive outline endowed it with a capacity to evolve into a universal emblem of resistance. Ironically, the Monument faces the left bank of the Dnipro and symbolically protects Kyiv from the hordes arriving from the East. Be it an accident or a tongue-in-cheek given by the Monument's creators to the Kremlin, the orientation proved providential in 2022.
July, 2023
