Rewriting history in the ‘reconstruction’ of Mariupol

The ‘Centre for the Study of Occupation’ founded by Petr Andrjuščenko, former councillor of the city council, denounces the Russian desire to ‘erase that part of the memory that had been preserved even after the world wars of the 20th century’. The emblematic story of the Drama Theatre that has become a symbol of the conflict in Ukraine.

Kiev (AsiaNews) - In the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, devastated and occupied by the Russians since the first months of the war of invasion, the Russian authorities are planning to completely eliminate the historical buildings, to build multi-storey apartment buildings where they can transfer the local citizens and the many others coming from the various regions of the Federation.

This operation is being documented by the ‘Centre for the Study of Occupation’ founded by Petr Andrjuščenko, a former city councillor, according to whom ‘they want to erase the part of the memory that had been preserved even after the world wars of the 20th century’.

Russian propaganda, increasingly invasive and overbearing in this phase of negotiations for the conclusion of the conflict, often insists on the theme of ‘reconstruction’ in the occupied and annexed territories, presenting plans for ‘new residential neighbourhoods’ and ‘restoration of cultural objectives’, according to criteria that demonstrate the ‘true Russian nature’ of these places. One of these buildings is the Mariupol Drama Theatre, built in the 1950s in a typical Soviet style, with a façade in white Crimean stone reminiscent of more ancient times, and sculptural groups that make it very original.

During the Russian siege of 2022, the theatre became a shelter from the bombing and a centre for humanitarian aid for the population. On 16th March, despite the large sign Deti (‘Children’) displayed on the ground in front of the building, the Russian air force dropped a bomb on the building, causing between 300 and 500 deaths, all of them defenceless citizens of Mariupol. During the following winter, the remains of the theatre were covered and partly demolished, to begin reconstruction according to a new Russian project, without even finishing exhuming the bodies of the deceased. As Andrjuščenko writes, ‘it was an attempt to hide the physical demonstrations of the greatness of the Ukrainian people, while exterminating its citizens’.

The work is expected to be completed by 2025, and the administration has promised to ‘preserve the historical appearance of the building’ by also restoring the sculptures, which had been preserved during the bombing of 2022 and were damaged in 2024 during work on the reconstruction of the facade. Instead of Crimean stone, normal Russian bricks were used; according to representatives of the Russian company Modul-Tsentr, which is in charge of the work, less than 30% of the original building has been preserved.

Another symbolic building in Mariupol is the Dom s časami, the ‘House with the Clock’, also built in the 1950s, where the workshop of a well-known Ukrainian monumentalist, Viktor Arnautov, was located, and where various artists were active after his death in 1966. The House had been completely restored in 2021, and was then destroyed in 2022 by a one-tonne Russian bomb.

During the occupation the Russians decided that the building could no longer be restored, and it was completely demolished. In its place a building several storeys higher than the original was constructed, with a screen on the façade imitating the old clock, and the apartments were assigned to members of the Russian administration, not to the citizens of Mariupol.

There are many other examples of the ‘destruction of memory’ linked to war and occupation, such as the Saur-Mogila memorial, the ‘Tomb of the Peak’ in memory of the end of the Second World War, a 36-metre high obelisk with a small square offering a panoramic view and a sculpture of a Soviet soldier, already destroyed in 2014 by Russian mercenaries fighting in the Donbass, and now replaced by a monument to the ‘heroes of the DNR’, the initials of the new republic annexed by Russia. It is estimated that over 300 monuments and historical sites have been destroyed by the Russians in Ukraine, to make room for the narrative of a victorious Russia, reconquering its ‘original lands’.