Russian aggression is driving the erasure of the Soviet legacy and is redefining national identities.
This blog is part of a summer blog series written by the McCain Institute’s Summer Junior Fellows. Blake Uhlig is a junior fellow for the Communications & Events team.
Russia’s conflict in Europe is not contained to traditional warfare; it has been waging a cultural war for decades. Its imperialist maneuvers are rooted in cultural, territorial, and linguistic ties tracing back to the Russian Empire and Soviet Union.
Much like Putin’s actions today, the Russian Empire and the U.S.S.R. expanded through coercion and violence. Modern Russia’s territorial claims are illegitimate because it never held legitimate authority over the occupied peoples. The cultural and linguistic ties we see between former Soviet states and Russia are the ruins of oppression.
The U.S.S.R. forced Eurasia into its fold. It denied opposing ideologies and sought to rebuild annexed territories in its image after they were left devastated by the Second World War. It replaced Nazi oppression with its own. The impact of policies that suppressed languages, traditions, and religions is a lasting remnant of the Russian legacy in states that have since achieved self-determination.
After the collapse of the U.S.S.R., former Soviet republics began the monumental task of defining their national identities. Their populations rejected decades of oppression, choosing to shift westward, fearful that the Russian state would reclaim its expansionist ambitions. The rejection was profound; states anchored their identities to their fights for freedom. Putin’s push to expand the Russian state through aggression has validated fears and, in turn, accelerated the erasure of the Soviet legacy.
Across Eastern Europe, Russian aggression has led to the neglect, destruction, and abandonment of Soviet monuments and the decline of the Russian language and culture. IN response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine have intensified the removal of monuments glorifying the Soviet Union. Kyrgyzstan removed its tallest statue of Lenin; Finland removed its last statue of Lenin, and Bulgaria removed its monument to the Soviet Army.
For people who won the fight against imperialism, these monuments are painful reminders of a past that could return. In a campaign to reclaim its authority, Russia has declared the removal and destruction of these monuments in foreign countries criminal offenses. It is tracking those involved in the dismantling of monuments and trying them in absentia. In response to Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas pledging to remove hundreds of Soviet-era monuments, Russia retaliated by launching its first criminal case against a foreign leader.
Russia is actively attempting to rewrite history; domestically, it is removing memorials dedicated to Soviet oppression and building new monuments that glorify it. In Lithuania, Russian military intelligence vandalized a memorial dedicated to a resistance leader killed by the Soviet regime. Russia will never be able to frame itself as a heroic force that ended Nazi oppression to a people who suffered from and fear its oppression.
Russia’s push to assert dominance over the heritage and identity of its neighbors is only hardening their resolve to maintain self-governance. The longer Russia continues its aggression, the deeper and more enduring its isolation will become. For those who achieved freedom from the Soviet system, its monuments testify to the expulsion of an entrenched monolith. The legacy of those who fought Soviet oppression is seen in those who fight it today.