Leaving Lenin: elites, official ideology and monuments in the Kyrgyz Republic

Abstract

Many Lenin monuments remain in cities around the former Soviet republics and a few national or regional authorities have decreed it against the law to deface or remove them. The Lenin monument in Bishkek, capital city of the Kyrgyz Republic, is an example of both policies. On two main counts, however, the fate of this particular bronze statue of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin has been unusual. Only in the Kyrgyz case was the country's central Lenin monument left untouched for over a decade after the collapse of communism, a decree for its preservation as a national treasure being put in force as late as 2000. And, when, in 2003, the government after all decided to remove the monument, it was then relocated only some 100 yards from its original location. These twin issues of timing and new spatial framing offer a window on the relationship between state ideology and politics in the Kyrgyz Republic. I propose to use an official ideology approach to understand the Kyrgyz ruling elite's ideological relationship to the Lenin monument after the collapse of communism.

Keywords:

• Lenin monument
• Soviet
• Kyrgyz Republic
• Central Asia
• official political economy

Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks to Graeme Gill, Emil Nasridtsov, Medet Tiulegenov, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. My gratitude also to The Leverhulme Trust for their funding support.

Notes

Author's interview with Alimjan Jorobaev, 14 November 2007.

See also: Moya Stolitsa, 20 August 2003 and Oksana Semenyak “Kuda shagaet Lenin?” Vechernii Bishkek, 14 August 2003 and her subsequent “V chem Lenin vinovat pered kyrgyzskim narodom?” Emgek tuusu, 13 September 2003.

Associated Press Worldstream, August 14, 2003 Thursday. “Kyrgyz communists protest government decision to remove Lenin's monument from capital's main square.”

News Bulletin, August 15, 2003, Friday. “Kyrgyz communists oppose removing Lenin monument.”

Compare the discussions surrounding the fate of Lenin's body where moral arguments have trumped political ones (Gill 2008).

Izvestiia, 27 August 1991, 8 June 1992, cited by Smith (2007).

Communication with and thanks to Graeme Gill, 26 February 2012.

ITAR-TASS November 2, 2011 Wednesday 04:24 PM GMT + 4 Monument to Vladimir Lenin unveiled in Ufa (adds) LENGTH: 386 words DATELINE: UFA November 2.

The Globe and Mail (Canada), April 1, 1995 Saturday.

Izvestiia, October 16, 2003, pp. 1–2.

Author's interview with Klara Ajybekova, 11 February 2009.

Associated Press Worldstream September 5, 2003 Friday Kyrgyz lawmakers refuse to vote no-confidence in Cabinet over Lenin statue.

This was part of a special issue devoted to memory and monuments. Other issues dedicated to memory in Representations have been: “Monumental Histories”, 35 (summer 1991) and “Grounds for Remembering”. 69 (winter 2000).

Author's interview, 26 April 2008.

“V tsentre Bishkeka vmesto Lenina vstanet pamyatnik…Akaevy?” Moya Stolitsa, 20 August 2003.

“Lenin: vsegda zhivoi?” Vechernii Bishkek, 23 January 2009.

“Nedobryi znak,” Obshchestvennyi Reiting, 25 October 2007. Early rumors predicted that the Lenin statue would be replaced with one of Akaev which, for this newspaper, would have been unthinkable. See also Litsa, 9 July 2009.

Parliamentary Law on the Monument V. I. Lenin, “Ala-Too” Square, Town of Bishkek, 22 May 2000. The law consists of one article which states: “The monument V. I Lenin (sculptors A.P. Kibal'nikov, V. I. Protkov, T. S. Sadykov, architects E.I. Kutyrev, A. I. Isaev), set up in 1984 on the Ala-Too square in Bishkek, constitutes an architectural-historical monument and is in the state's safekeeping.”

V. I. Lenin, “Decree on the Monuments of the Republic, 12th April 1918,” in Lenin, On Literature and Art (London, 1965), 245.

Grant rightly points out that Lenin had intended frequent changes in the monumental landscape, a constant destruction and renewal (2001).

Television Footage, Moscow State TV, 1984.

Also observing that Soviet power was “pushing out the tradition of akyn (bards) and aitys (improvised poetry competitions)”; see also Martin (2000).

On monuments see also his Posthumous Papers of a Living Author: “One cannot say that we [do] not notice them; one would have to say they ‘de-notice’ us, they elude our perceptive faculties: this is a downright vandalism-inciting quality of theirs!” (Musil 1987, 62).

Thank you to Emil Nasridtsov for bringing this to my attention.

“Lenin vsegda zhivoi?” Vechernii Bishkek, 23 January 1998, p. 20.

Poole refers to Cartesian modes of representation. See also Barthes, Image.

Author's interview with Sultan Raev, 26 April 2008. The Minister is referring to Uzbekistan's Soviet-era monument Druzhba (symbolizing friendship between different nationalities), removed by the Uzbek regime after independence.

“Lenin did a lot of very good things for the Kyrgyz people = doloi,” (Hands off!) Moya Stolitsa 20 August 2003.

Chingiz Aitmatov, KSSR TV Footage Archives, 1984. See also comments by former Kyrgyz Communist Party First Secretary Turdakun Usubaliev (1982).

Author's interview, 3 June 2008.

Yurchak recounts how:

In the late 1960s, during the campaign for the preparation for Lenin's one hundredth birthday in 1970, the artists of KZhOI were informed of a circular sent from the CC in Moscow saying that very few people still remembered Lenin personally and therefore he had to be depicted “more as a heroic symbol than a common man”. (2006, 55)

Author's interview with Sultan Raev, 26 April 2008.

Author's Interview, 15 March 2008.

Author's interview, 24 February 2009.