Kyiv Pedestal Once Held Lenin Could Become a Monument to Ivan Mazepa
A long-empty pedestal in central Kyiv may soon be assigned a new historical meaning. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said over the weekend that Ivan Mazepa, the Cossack leader many Ukrainians regard as a national hero, deserves a full monument in the capital. The remarks came during Constitution Day commemorations at Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, where a smaller bust of Mazepa was also unveiled near Dormition Cathedral.
The site itself is inseparable from Ukraine’s recent political history. For nearly 60 years, a 12-foot-tall red quartzite statue of Vladimir Lenin stood on the pedestal at the intersection of two major roads. It was toppled during the Euromaidan Uprising in 2013, after demonstrations erupted when then-president Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an agreement with the European Union, a decision that deepened the country’s ties to Russia.
In the years that followed, Ukraine moved to erase Soviet symbols from public space. The government outlawed monuments to Lenin and other Soviet-era markers, and the transformation was dramatic: according to the New York Times, Ukraine had 5,500 Lenin statues in 1991, and none by 2017.
Zelenskyy used his speech to recast Mazepa as a figure whose reputation had been shaped by Russian propaganda. Mazepa served as head of the Cossack state from 1687 to 1709, and his legacy has remained politically charged for centuries. Speaking from a monastery he once patronized, Zelenskyy said Russia had spent generations trying to persuade Ukrainians to see their own history “through the eyes of others.”
The proposed monument would do more than replace one statue with another. It would mark a deliberate shift in the symbols that occupy one of Kyiv’s most visible public sites, and in the historical narrative those symbols are meant to carry.
