Historian and activist Serhiy Hutsalyuk tells Intent about the future of Odesa

The composition of the Odesa City Council and its mayor will change after the war, and the city will finally be cleared of pro-Russian myths.

Such thoughts were expressed in an interview with Intent by Serhiy Hutsalyuk, head of the Southern Interregional Department of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, historian, activist and former military serviceman.

He noted that throughout the city's history as part of independent Ukraine, local politicians have been actively promoting the idea that Odesa is not a part of Ukraine, but an integral part of Russian history. He also recalled how he met the declaration of Ukraine's independence and how the Odesa City Council was stormed and how the city's political elites changed.

As for the monuments to Russian writers, Serhiy Hutsaliuk believes that these monuments are a marker of the fact that the entire multiculturalism of Odesa was defined through the prism of Russian culture.

"Odesa is a multicultural city, and we have to return multiculturalism to it now, because until recently, multiculturalism was all we had, the 'golden age of Russian literature' was all we had, nothing else. Babel Pushkin-Kalatushkin is everything. But in reality, if we are talking about multiculturalism, we need to talk about all cultures and peoples. Where is Jabotinsky? He was one of those who was the first to outline that Odesa is a part of Ukraine back in 1905. Why is this not talked about? They talk about Babel, who was never a Jewish writer. The fact that he was of Jewish descent, well, he never identified himself with all this," the historian emphasized.

Now, during the war, the city, according to the historian, is independently cleansing itself of the imperial past, and with the end of the war, there will be no more people in the city council who support Russian narratives.

Кирило Бойко