- June 4, 2026
- 9:06 pm
- Ukraine
In Kyiv, on June 4, 2026, the monument to Mikhail Bulgakov was dismantled on Andriyivskyy Descent. The monument stood next to the Literary-Memorial Museum of the writer, in one of the most recognizable spots of the Ukrainian capital.
Formally, this decision was made earlier: the Kyiv City Council supported the dismantling back in December 2025. But the very day when the municipal services removed the monument and took it away from Andriyivskyy Descent became the symbolic finale of an old dispute.
Because Bulgakov in Kyiv is not just literature.
It’s a question of who has the right to tell the city’s history. It’s a question of whether a public monument to an author who viewed the Ukrainian state movement from within the Russian imperial world can be preserved in the capital of a warring Ukraine. And it’s a question of where the line is between reading a complex author and honoring him on a pedestal.
Why the dismantling of the Bulgakov monument became more than a city news story
The Bulgakov monument was installed on Andriyivskyy Descent — a street often perceived as one of Kyiv’s cultural calling cards. That’s why the dismantling couldn’t pass as a regular municipal procedure.
This is not the outskirts, not a random bust at a closed institution, not a forgotten Soviet plaque on a wall. Andriyivskyy Descent is a place where the city presents itself to tourists, Kyivans, foreigners, historians, artists, and those who seek not only architecture in Kyiv but also meaning.
For a long time, Bulgakov appeared there as part of the ‘old Kyiv.’ His biography is indeed connected with the city. He was born in Kyiv, lived there, wrote about it, and created one of the most famous literary images of early 20th-century Kyiv.
But therein lies the complexity.
If it were about a writer who simply lived in the city and left artistic texts about it, the dispute would be much softer. However, Bulgakov wrote about Kyiv at a time when the fate of Ukrainian statehood was being decided. He described the events of 1918 — early 1919 not neutrally, but through the eyes of a Russian commoner and officer environment, for whom the Ukrainian movement was not a natural right of the people to independence, but an irritating intrusion into the usual order.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, such things began to be read differently.
While Russian propaganda continues to repeat that Ukraine is ‘artificial,’ that Ukrainian statehood is supposedly accidental, and Kyiv is part of the ‘Russian historical space,’ the Bulgakov monument in the center of the capital ceased to be just a sign of literary memory.
It became part of the dispute over Ukraine’s right to its own perspective.
A monument is not a library shelf
The main mistake of the opponents of dismantling often lies in the substitution of concepts. They speak as if the removal of the monument means a ban on Bulgakov, the destruction of literature, or the refusal to study a complex legacy.
But a monument is not a book.
A book can lie in a library, be the subject of a lecture, a critical article, a school or university course. It can be read, argued with, analyzed for language, composition, ideology, artistic talent, and the author’s political blind spots.
A monument does something else. It does not offer a discussion. It asserts public respect.
When a figure stands on a pedestal in the historical center of the capital, the city seems to say: this person deserves to be part of our visible pantheon. Not just part of history, but part of the honorable urban space.
This is where the conflict arose.
Ukraine is not obliged to erase Bulgakov from literature. But Ukraine has the right to say: this author should not stand on a pedestal in Kyiv, especially during a war with a state whose imperial ideology has used similar notions about Ukraine for decades.
Bulgakov and the myth of ‘terrible Ukraine’
To understand why the dispute around Bulgakov turned out to be so acute, it’s important to go beyond the simple thesis of ‘Russian writer.’ The problem is not in the language as such and not only in the passport of cultural affiliation.
The problem is in the myth.
In the Ukrainian discussion about Bulgakov, a special place is occupied by the analysis of how he described the Ukrainian movement in ‘The White Guard’ and ‘The Days of the Turbins.’ In Yaroslav Tynchenko’s article in ‘Ukrainian Week,’ this line is formulated particularly precisely: Bulgakov, even in the 1920s, helped create and consolidate in the Russian consciousness the image of ‘terrible Ukraine’ and ‘brutal Petliurites.’ At the same time, the paradox is that his text is not as primitive as later Russian clichés. It is much more complex and therefore much more interesting for analysis.
Bulgakov wrote from the position of a person of the Russian world, who saw the Ukrainian national movement as a threat to the familiar urban, social, and cultural hierarchy. For his characters, Kyiv is not the capital of the Ukrainian project, but ‘their’ city, where the Ukrainian army and the Ukrainian language are perceived as something alien, sharp, coming from outside.
This is what sounds especially painful today.
Because Kremlin propaganda of the 21st century speaks almost the same language, only more crudely. It also denies Ukraine full subjectivity. It also portrays the Ukrainian movement as a dangerous element. It also tries to present Ukrainian statehood not as a historical choice of society, but as a threat to the ‘normal’ order.
Bulgakov did not write modern Kremlin manuals. But his literary perspective turned out to be very convenient for a later imperial myth.
The paradox of ‘The White Guard’: the author against Ukraine, but the text captures Ukrainian strength
The most interesting thing in the dispute about Bulgakov is that he cannot simply be dismissed as a primitive propagandist. In ‘The White Guard,’ there is an imperial perspective, contempt for the Ukrainian language, a painful rejection of Ukrainian statehood. But there is also something that was almost impossible to see openly in the Soviet literary environment: the Ukrainian army is shown as a real force.
Not as mythical ‘bands,’ not as random chaos, not as a caricature from Moscow newspapers, but as a military and popular reality.
An important thought from the analysis of ‘Ukrainian Week’ is that in Soviet times, it was precisely in Bulgakov that one could read not only about ‘Petliurites’ in a crude propagandistic sense, but about a regular Ukrainian army supported by a significant part of the population.
This is a historically important paradox.
The author did not like the Ukrainian project. His characters looked down on Ukrainians. But the artistic material itself turned out to be stronger than the author’s antipathy. The text reveals Ukrainian massiveness: people who returned from the war, who know how to shoot; weapons hidden in villages; Ukrainian teachers, paramedics, seminarians, former military who become cadres of the national movement.
Yes, Bulgakov presents this with anxiety and irony.
But the reader sees the main thing: Ukraine was not an invention. The Ukrainian army did not appear out of nowhere. Behind it stood social strata, military experience, national feeling, weapons, local support, and the desire to talk about the country’s future in the Ukrainian language.
And in this sense, Bulgakov, without wanting to, left a testimony that works against the Russian thesis of an ‘artificial Ukraine.’
Why the image of Petliurites in Bulgakov is more complex than the Kremlin caricature
Another important point: Bulgakov does not always depict Ukrainian warriors only as faceless villains. In certain episodes, his text shows the logic of their actions, the military situation, motives, and circumstances.
For example, when it comes to clashes with officer units or fighting with people whom Ukrainian forces perceived as opponents of the UNR, the text does not always reduce what is happening to ‘national savagery.’ The analysis in ‘Ukrainian Week’ notes: in Bulgakov, Ukrainian warriors do not kill characters just because they are Russian, Jewish, Russian-speaking, or do not share Ukrainian ideas. He shows the military context, documents, intelligence, belonging to the hostile side.
For today’s reader, this is important for two reasons.
First: Bulgakov was indeed a person with an imperial worldview, but his artistic observation sometimes captured reality more accurately than his own political sympathies.
Second: later Russian propaganda often takes only the convenient shell from such texts — ‘chaos,’ ‘Petliurites,’ ‘terrible Ukraine‘ — and discards everything that hinders the myth. And much hinders: the organization of Ukrainian units, popular support, military discipline, the complexity of events, the responsibility of different sides.
That’s why modern Ukrainian reading of Bulgakov should not be lazy.
It cannot simply be replaced with a slogan. It needs to be analyzed — but not celebrated.
What dismantling says to Kyiv, Israel, and everyone who understands the value of memory
For the Israeli audience, this story is understood more deeply than it might seem from the outside. In Israel, it is well known that the struggle for memory is not an embellishment of politics, but one of its main nerves.
A street, a monument, a museum, a memorial plaque, a square name — all these answer the question: who is considered one of us, who remains a complex part of history, and who is turned into a symbol of foreign power.
In Kyiv, such a revision is happening right now.
NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency considers the dismantling of the Bulgakov monument not as a ‘war on literature,’ but as the Ukrainian capital’s refusal of the imperial framework, in which Kyiv was for decades tried to be presented not as the center of Ukrainian statehood, but as a convenient backdrop for the Russian cultural myth.
For repatriates from Ukraine, the Ukrainian community in Israel, and Jews closely following Russia’s war against Ukraine, there is an obvious connection with the Israeli experience. A people who know that memory cannot be given to foreign editing better understand why monuments in the city matter.
It’s not bronze.
It’s power over the narrative.
Bulgakov, the Jewish context, and the danger of simplifications
In this topic, there is another layer important for the reader in Israel. Bulgakov’s Kyiv is a multinational city where Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Poles, officers, shopkeepers, doctors, gymnasium students, officials, refugees, military, and people trying to survive another change of power coexist.
That’s why any simple schemes are dangerous here.
If we present Bulgakov only as a ‘bad Russian author,’ we will lose the complexity of the Kyiv material. If we present him only as a ‘great writer of old Kyiv,’ we will lose the Ukrainian pain and the imperial perspective embedded in his texts.
It’s more correct to see both layers at once.
He was indeed a talented writer. He indeed created a strong literary image of Kyiv. He indeed captured important historical scenes, sometimes even those that Ukrainian historical memory can read as confirmation of its own strength.
But he also looked at the Ukrainian national movement from within a world to which this movement was alien and unpleasant. He did not see in Ukrainian statehood the natural right of the people. His characters often perceive the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian military, and Ukrainian political will as a violation of the ‘normal’ urban order.
For a country that is defending itself from Russian aggression today, this is enough to remove the monument from the pedestal.
Not a book from the library.
A monument from the street.
The story of the 1936 translation: why Ukrainians read Bulgakov differently
A particularly important detail from the ‘Ukrainian Week’ material is the story of the Ukrainian reading of ‘The White Guard’ back in the 1930s.
Fragments of the novel were known to Ukrainian emigrants, veterans of the UNR Army. In 1937, in the publication of participants in the liberation struggle ‘Calendar-Almanac “Chervona Kalyna”’ translated fragments were published. The translation was done by Fedor Dudko — a person who himself was connected with the Ukrainian press of Kyiv in the early 20th century and could evaluate the text not only as a reader but also as a witness of the era.
This is an important touch.
Ukrainians did not start arguing with Bulgakov only after 2022. They read, translated, discussed, and critically comprehended him much earlier. It was already clear then: in front of them was an author alien to the Ukrainian movement in spirit, but at the same time observant enough to leave powerful scenes of the struggle for Kyiv.
In fact, Ukrainian emigration saw in Bulgakov not ‘their’ author, but a hostile witness whose descriptions can be used as historical material.
This is a very accurate formula for today.
Bulgakov can remain material. But material is not a monument.
Sophia Square, the Ukrainian army, and involuntary recognition
One of the strongest plots noted in the analysis of ‘Ukrainian Week’ is the description of the UNR troops parade on Sophia Square on December 19, 1918.
For Ukrainian memory, this scene is important in itself: Kyiv, Sophia Square, Ukrainian units, yellow-blue flags, military organization, massiveness, a sense of historical moment. Even if Bulgakov wrote with irony, even if he did not share the Ukrainian pathos, the main thing remains in his text: Ukrainian statehood was a reality, not a fantasy.
The Soviet and Russian tradition for decades tried to present the Ukrainian movement of 1917–1921 as a chaotic, secondary, almost accidental force. But the description in Bulgakov, if read carefully, breaks this scheme.
There is an army.
There are commanders.
There are people.
There is a language.
There are symbols.
There is support.
There is Kyiv as a space of struggle, not as an eternal decoration of ‘Russian history.’
That’s why the modern removal of the Bulgakov monument does not cancel his text. On the contrary, it forces us to read it more attentively — not as a nostalgic novel about the ‘old city,’ but as a document of the imperial perspective, within which Ukrainian subjectivity unexpectedly emerges.
Why Kyiv is not obliged to be a museum of the Russian view of itself
For a long time, a significant part of the cultural optics around Kyiv was built as if the city should be grateful for any mention in Russian literature. If a Russian author wrote beautifully about Kyiv, it was considered enough for the city to remain indebted to his memory.
But independent Ukraine is gradually destroying this logic.
Kyiv is not obliged to be a museum of the Russian view of Kyiv.
Kyiv can read Bulgakov, but it is not obliged to see itself through his eyes. It can recognize the author’s literary talent, but it is not obliged to leave him on a pedestal. It can preserve museum memory, but separate it from public honor.
This is a mature position, not an emotional purge.
Moreover, it is this position that allows for a more honest discussion of the past. When a monument stands in the center of the city, it presses on the conversation with its bronze authority. When the monument is removed, there is an opportunity to analyze without obligatory reverence.
Decolonization as defense, not revenge
Russian propaganda habitually presents dismantling as ‘barbarism,’ ‘cancellation of culture,’ and ‘hatred of everything Russian.’ This is predictable.
But such a framework deliberately hides the main thing: Ukraine is not destroying culture, but reassembling public space after centuries of imperial pressure and decades of Soviet Russification.
Decolonization is not revenge on dead writers.
It is the right of a living society to decide which signs should stand on its streets.
Especially during a war.
When Russia daily tries to prove that Ukraine ‘does not exist,’ Ukrainian cities respond not only with the army, diplomacy, and laws. They respond with the map of streets, the language of signs, school programs, museum accents, monuments, and what disappears from pedestals.
In this sense, Andriyivskyy Descent has become another line of defense.
What remains after the dismantling
After June 4, 2026, Bulgakov did not disappear from Kyiv. And he will not disappear.
He will remain in archives, museums, books, articles, university courses, and debates. He will be read — perhaps even more attentively than before. Because without automatic reverence, it is easier to see both the literary power and the political blindness, and the imperial nerve of the text.
But now Kyiv has made an important clarification: being part of the city’s history and standing on a pedestal in the city are not the same thing.
This is perhaps the main meaning of the dismantling.
Ukraine is not obliged to keep in the center of its capital symbols that help Russia tell the old tale of ‘Russian Kyiv.’ Ukraine is not obliged to substitute its own memory with someone else’s nostalgia. Ukraine is not obliged to explain its statehood through the irritation of those who did not accept it.
Bulgakov once helped to cement in the Russian imagination the image of a ‘terrible Ukraine.’ But history turned in such a way that it was this very ‘terrible Ukraine’ that stood firm, armed itself, became self-aware, defended Kyiv in 2022, and now decides for itself who stands on Andriyivskyy Descent.
The monument was removed.
The books remain.
The debate has become more honest.
And Kyiv once again reminded: urban memory is not a warehouse of old symbols, but a living territory of a state that defends itself from the empire not only on the front but also in its own historical center.