“Leninfall”\u00a0refers to the wave of dismantling Lenin monuments, the first leader of the USSR, and other Soviet figures that swept across Ukraine following the events of Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity in 2013\u20132014. This process was driven by several factors: a desire to cleanse the country of Soviet legacies, a fight for national identity, and a symbolic rejection of the totalitarian past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The mass \u201cLeninfall\u201d began with the removal of the Lenin monument on Kyiv’s Bessarabska Square on December 8, 2013. The destruction of Soviet-era monuments intensified after reports of activists\u2019 deaths during violent clashes at Maidan in Kyiv, spreading rapidly across Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Crimea, the \u201cLeninfall\u201d began somewhat later than in mainland Ukraine but still reached the peninsula, despite resistance from local authorities and pro-Russian groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the scale of the movement in Crimea was not as extensive as on the mainland, several notable instances occurred. The first documented removal in Crimea took place on January 26, 2014, in the village of Turhenivka in the Bakhchysarai district. Most incidents, however, occurred in February of the same year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On February 19, 2014, a Lenin statue was dismantled in the village of Orlivka in the Perekop district. On February 23, two more monuments were removed in the villages of Pryvitne and Rybache in the Yalta district. In Pryvitne, the statue was toppled, decapitated, and dismembered, with its hand lying near the torso and the bust discarded beyond a fence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n