By Olha Chepil | 2025-11-05

Everywhere in Ukraine, history is being rewritten -- not through revision, but recovery. Street by street, exhibit by exhibit, Ukrainians are reclaiming a past that the Soviet Union tried to overwrite, and in doing so, they're defining what it means to be Ukrainian in the 21st century.

After Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine accelerated its derussification and decolonization efforts, revisiting place names, rethinking museums, reshaping school curricula and even reimagining its cuisine. Analysts say Ukrainians are rediscovering their own identity and reconnecting with their history.

"The imperial influence appears in names and language, and also in behavioral patterns, living habits and traditions. The current situation is forcing an acceleration of decolonization," Yevhen Shatilov, a historian and researcher at Ukraine's National Military History Museum, told Kontur.

From Lenin to Shevchenko

In fall 2024, Ukraine's parliament voted to rename 327 towns with Soviet or Russian origins. Since then, the number of place names slated for change has surged.

In Kharkiv alone, officials have renamed about 370 sites -- from metro stations to streets -- to remove symbols tied to Russia. In the Odesa region, more than 400 streets have received new names, including those once honoring Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and Soviet prose authors Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov. Across the country, monuments bearing Soviet or Russian emblems are coming down.

Gregor Razumovsky, an Austrian historian and political analyst who has studied Russia-Ukraine relations for decades, said the campaign is more than symbolic. Renaming, he told Kontur, restores historical memory and helps reclaim identity.

He cited the renaming of Dnipropetrovsk to Dnipro as a telling example. The old name referenced both Peter the Great and Grigory Petrovskiy, a Soviet official linked to mass killings.

Razumovsky added that removing "Leninist" and "Marxist" street names reflects changing tastes and a broader moral correction. He said communism caused tens of millions of deaths in the 20th century, and there's no reason to honor it.

"The culture of memory implies the cultivation of identity," Razumovsky said, adding that successive Russian empires tried to erase Ukrainian culture. "In a country that has dozens of illustrious poets, there's no need to devote hundreds of main streets to Pushkin."

Museums against imperial myths

Decolonization is most visible in Ukraine's museums and theaters, which are reworking their exhibitions and repertoires to shed the Soviet and Russian canon.

Museums are shifting their focus from heroic Soviet narratives to critical interpretations, Yevhen Shatilov, a historian at Ukraine's National Military History Museum, told Kontur. Some institutions have scrapped old exhibitions after realizing they echo how Russia continues to manipulate history.

Reevaluating World War II has become a central task. During the Soviet era, the war was portrayed as a unifying struggle of the "Soviet people." That changed after Russia's aggression in 2014, as Ukrainians began reframing it as part of their own story, emphasizing the experiences of those who endured occupation and repression rather than glorifying Soviet heroism.

The same reassessment is unfolding in art museums. For decades, Ukrainian artists working abroad were mislabeled as Russian, distorting the record of cultural heritage.

Since 2022, activists have pushed international museums to correctly identify artists' origins, a shift Shatilov called an important step in reclaiming cultural identity.

At home, museums are spotlighting national artists to show that Ukrainian art stands on its own.

The 2024 exhibition In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine at Vienna's Belvedere featured works by Alexandra Exter, Vasyl Yermilov, Kazymyr Malevych and others once classified as "Russian" or "Soviet."

"Imperialism long portrayed Ukrainian art as provincial," Shatilov said. "Now museums are proving it's a strong, modern tradition -- not a hut and a fence, but a living culture."

Sweet decommunization

Amid war and sweeping cultural change, Ukraine is also rediscovering its culinary identity.

Chef and restaurateur Yevhen Klopotenko has become a leading voice in reimagining Ukrainian cuisine freed from Soviet influence.

Along with other chefs, he replaced the traditional Pavlova with a new dessert named after Barbara Karinska, the Ukrainian ballerina and costume designer who created the modern ballet tutu and won an Academy Award for costume design.

"Dessert is a language," Klopotenko told Kontur. "It's my way of showcasing Ukrainian things, touting Ukrainians and making a loud, dazzling statement to the world." He said the dish uses Ukrainian ingredients such as domestic cherries and fried buckwheat, which adds a light, nutty flavor.

The dessert is part of a broader effort to revive Ukraine's regional food traditions. Klopotenko travels across the country researching historic recipes, promoting Ukrainian borscht internationally and reviving forgotten dishes. His goal, he said, is to put Ukrainian cuisine "back in its place" and show that it is a distinctly European tradition with its own flavor and heritage.