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| Veaceslav Craciun | |
The main street in Comrat, which is the capital of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, bears the name of Vladimir Lenin, but could be renamed in honor of the first president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Gagauzia Stepan Topal. The opportunity of such an idea became a subject of heated debates for public opinion in Gagauzia. The financial collateral aspect seems to have a simple solution, unlike the problem of national consciousness of the Gagauz people about which there are doubts.
“Lenin is Gagauz”
The fact that in 2018, three decades after the national renaissance of the people of Gagauzia, the main artery of their administrative center still bears the name of the main symbol of the Soviet epoch is a curiosity only for the guests from outside. For the locals, this is something ordinary and not only in Comrat. The world proletariat’s leader is immortalized in the names of practically all the main streets in the localities of Gagauz-Yeri. If someone who disagrees with history would like to assess this reality, this will have all the reasons to presume that Lenin is an important Gagauz person or he played a decisive role in the history of the people of Gagauzia.
Despite the discrepancy between values, this situation bothered practically no one for a long period. For many, Lenin managed to become a “sacred cow” protected from any touch. For fear of arousing the anger of populists, even a timid proposal to rename the main street of Comrat was interpreted as an anti-Russia provocation, while the formally correct replies that “the town has more important problems” make the activists who plead for a new name a minority. As a result, the few discussions on this subject seldom left the social networking sites or informal talks.
Knowing the heroes
The subject returned to the public agenda after September 29, when Stepan Topal, one of the founders of the self-proclaimed Republic of Gagauzia who was a prominent figure in the local patriotic sphere, died. The activists said namely his name should replace that of Vladimir Ilyich in the name of the main street of Comrat. This time the representatives of public opinion managed to bring the issue into the focus of some of the policies and local public bodies. On November 14, the Comrat mayor’s office held a public debate on the issue and this was attended by mayor Sergei Anastasov, several former and current deputies of the People’s Assembly (APG-Y – the autonomous unit’s Parliament), municipal councilors and leaders of public organizations.
The discussion was rather heated. Public activist Leonid Dobrov was among the first who proposed keeping the memory of Stepan Topal. He said naming the main streets by the names of leaders is an ordinary practice in all the countries, but noted that the problem is not simple as it implies costs, especially for replacing the documents, and this would be a burden for most of the inhabitants. He noted the given sums could be covered with local budget funds.
Ex-speaker of the APG-Y Dmitry Constantinov reacted immediately. He said he is ready to cover the costs associated with the renaming of Lenin St as Stepan Topal St and was applauded by those attending.
Former deputy of the APG-Y Nicolai Dmitrioglo was among those who urged not to hurry renaming the street. According to him, many of the inhabitants with whom he discussed proposed placing a commemorative bust in memory of Topal and not changing the name of the street. He spoke with concern about the fate of Lenin’s monument in front of the executive committee of Gagauzia. “The changing of the name of the street could be followed by the relocation of the monument,” stated Dmitrioglo.
Deputy Ilya Uzun confirmed such suspicions. He said Lenin’s monument should be indeed relocated. “An epoch passed. [In Chisinau] the main artery was renamed Ștefan cel Mare. This is a correct decision. If we know about Lenin, but don’t know about Ștefan, what kind of history will we have? We must know our history and honor our heroes,” stated Uzun.
Matter is “in suspense”
The debate was summarized by mayor Anastasov, who, by all appearances, is also not satisfied with the fact that Lenin forms part of the main national symbols of the people of Gagauzia. “They say we commemorate Lenin, but he is not our hero. We have so many leaders. Should we forget them all? What common history do we have with Lenin?” he asked.
Nevertheless, even if the supporters of the remaining of the street prevailed, no decision could be reached and the initiative entered “suspense”. Anastasov didn’t say when this issue could be included in the agenda of the municipal council. Instead, the mayor said he is for additional meetings and debates.
Leonid Dobrov admitted that Anastasov’s ‘prudence’ is well-founded. On the one hand, the mayor wants to satisfy the Bashkan and to thwart the renaming. He will thus stage several more debates. On the other hand, he is convinced that if the matter is included in the agenda, it will be adopted.
In search of national conscience
The president of the cultural-educative association “Aydînnîk” Victor Kopushchiu considers the official renaming of the main street of Comrat is a matter of time and the difficulty of the moment resides in the population’s attitude to the revolutionary leader. “The renaming starts in the head and until there is Lenin with his ideas in the heads of the majority of people, it will be hard to move on. Entrepreneurship will develop with difficulty. There will be difficulties in ensuring the transparency of decisions at all the levels and pluralism of opinions,” Kopushchiu wrote on his blog.
The activity of Lenin was emotively assessed at the debate held by the mayor’s office. But is this an appropriate approach for identifying a positive solution? Any assessment of the historical personality implies the political preferences of the people and can leads to the division of society. If the initiative to rename the street follows this path, it can reach deadlock. The solution can be identified by detaching the “Soviet past” from the “anti-Soviet present” and by addressing the national conscience of the people of Gagauzia that in many of them harmonizes with the “Soviet gene”.
That’s why the attempt to rename a main street does not look or at least should not look as a struggle with the Soviet past. It is nothing more than an attempt to allot the short Soviet period an appropriate place in the history of the people of Gagauzia.
IPN publishes in the Op-Ed rubric opinion pieces submitted by authors not affiliated with our editorial board. The opinions expressed in these articles do not necessarily coincide with the opinions of our editorial board.
IPN note:
According to the information portal “Ruskii mir”, the scientific conference “World War I in the past of southern Bessarabia”, held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I of 1914 – 1918, was organized by the Consultancy and Information Center “Dialog” in cooperation with the Scientific Society of Bulgarians in the Republic of Moldova within the project “Together we Restore Memory” that is implemented in Gagauzia and Taraclia district with support from the Foundation “Russkii mir”.