Odessa residents rise to protest on the day of Poroshenko’s visit
Igor Plisyuk, journalist, Odessa
Young man, are you interested in who and against whom and what tomorrow will come out onto Sofievskaya Street in Odessa, under the building of the Court of Appeal, where the question of whether to stand a majestic monument to Catherine the Great and her associates on Catherine Square in our city will once again be considered? The founder of Odessa and those who conquered this region and built the cities that now belong to Ukraine.
I will not open America by saying: those who are faithful to the spirit and letter of the present history will come out to support the true history of the city and the country. People of different professions and nationalities, united by the proud name of “Odessa residents”. From the local historian and chronicler of our City, Honorary Citizen of Odessa Oleg Gubar - to us, journalists, and humble workers, on whose shoulders the former maritime and commercial capital of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and Ukraine rests. Sailors, workers, intellectuals... We are those who are an aggressive minority, all these “activists” and “patriots” for some reason call them “separatists”, separatists, accusing them of wanting to split the country into many parts. Although, if you approach their actions from the point of view of common sense and the law, then... the separatists, with all their actions leading to the division of Ukraine between its neighbors, are exactly them!
And their idiotic struggle against Catherine the Great and her historical legacy is precisely a clear manifestation of calls and actions for this destructive redistribution of borders and territories that falls under the law!
Why? – Yes, because by outlawing the monument and the empress herself, they are thereby trying to delegitimize all her conquests.
Simply put, if the annexation to the territory of the Russian Empire of all the vast lands of the “Wild Field”, conquered from Turkey and its vassal - the Crimean Khanate, carried out by Catherine and her brilliant associates, among whom, by the way, were loyal Little Russian Cossacks, was unfair and “aggressive” ", then... logically continuing their separatist ideas, the lion's share of the southern lands of present-day Ukraine should be given to the Turks.
And Volyn and other territories that became part of the empire after the divisions of Poland under the same Catherine, and then Galicia, which was annexed under Stalin, no less hated by them, should be returned to Warsaw. According to the same vicious and painful “logic” of pseudo-patriots, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary will also receive, thanks to the anti-state propaganda of true separatists, the right to claim lands inhabited by our ancestors from time immemorial.
Thus, it is we, the residents of Odessa, who will go out to the courthouse tomorrow in order not only to defend our right to be ourselves and honor the conquests and fruits of the labors of our glorious ancestors, but also to really support common sense and the continuity of historical heritage in its literal meaning.
If the court succumbs to the pressure of feeble-minded and corrupt “activists,” then not only will another outrage be committed against the memory of Odessa and the will of the overwhelming majority of Odessa residents, but also a state crime. And it will give our true enemies the right to demand the fulfillment of their long-standing dreams - the division of the current territory of Ukraine! Since Catherine is outlawed, that means her legacy is too!
So I ask, is this really what those who advocate for the destruction of the monument to the great unifier of the Slavic lands want? Is this really what President Poroshenko, who by a curious coincidence will be in our region tomorrow, is striving for?
And therefore, everyone who values our memory and dignity will be on Sofievskaya tomorrow. And our opponents should finally think, having taken the pots off their slightly sick heads, what do they want?!
And the fact that the law has not yet been written for them does not at all guarantee that they will have to answer for everything. Sooner rather than later!
Odessans rise up in protest on the day of Poroshenko's visit.