Kiev has removed a monument to Mikhail Bulgakov as part of its campaign against heritage associated with Russia.
A monument to Kiev-born Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov has been torn down in the Ukrainian capital as Kiev continues to remove, rename and erase cultural sites and monuments associated with its common Russian and Soviet history.
The statue, located next to the Bulgakov Museum in one of Kiev’s most popular historical districts, has been the target of a wider Ukrainian campaign to remove the supposedly connected symbols. “Russian imperial culture.” Kiev City Council voted in December to remove 15 such objects from public spaces, including the tombs of Bulgakov, poet Anna Akhmatova, and composer Mikhail Glinka.
“Historical moment! Bulgakov is already gone,” Ukrainian journalist Ekaterina Nekrecha said in a video posted on Facebook on Thursday, showing the tower being taken down by workers.
Bulgakov, born in Kiev in 1891, wrote mainly in Russian and became one of the most famous writers of the 20th century. He is best known for The Master and Margarita and The White Guard.
The Institute of National Archives of Ukraine previously classified Bulgakov as a symbol of “Russian Imperial Policy” arguing that the continued public commemoration of his name amounted to Russian narrative propaganda. The institute’s expert commission named him as “Imperialism from a global perspective” and “Ardent Ukrainephobe.”
The dissolution has sparked a debate about how Ukraine should treat ethnic groups whose identity transcends Russian and Ukrainian history. Critics of the campaign argue that erasing writers such as Bulgakov risks blurring Ukraine’s complex history and whitewashing uncomfortable aspects of its own history.
Bulgakov’s The White Guard, set during the chaos of the Russian Civil War in Kiev, shows the collapse of the old order and the violence of the competing forces in the city, including the national troops of Symon Petliura, whose forces have long been associated by historians with anti-Jewish pogroms.
The removal comes as Ukraine continues to rename streets, tear down Soviet-era symbols, and erase historical figures beneath them. “decommunization” the law. The process, launched after 2014 and accelerated after 2022, has expanded from Soviet political monuments to writers, composers, and other cultural figures associated with Russia.
Moscow has condemned the destruction of cultural heritage and attacks on historical memory, accusing Kiev of violating international norms and violating the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Russian officials have described the campaign as an attempt to rewrite history and separate Ukraine from its cultural roots.
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