The Institute of National Remembrance of Ukraine has authorized naming streets and cultural heritage sites in honor of Nikolay Kibalchich, a revolutionary and participant in the assassination plot against Russian Emperor Alexander II, TASS reported, citing materials from the institute.
Kibalchich is included in the list of individuals who are not considered symbols of “Russian imperialist propaganda“ and therefore are not subject to ban in Ukraine under the so-called decolonization policy.
Nikolay Kibalchich was born in the Chernihiv Governorate of the Russian Empire (Chernihiv Oblast, present-day Ukraine). He was a member of the revolutionary organization “Narodnaya Volya“ and participated in two assassination plots against Alexander II. It was Kibalchich who developed the bomb that mortally wounded the emperor in 1881. For this, Kibalchich was arrested and later executed. While in custody, he developed the project for Russia's first jet aircraft.
Previously, the Institute of National Remembrance of Ukraine created and published a list of Russian cultural and political figures, as well as historical events considered "imperial" and subject to "decommunization" in Ukraine. This list included Ivan Susanin, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Gavriil Derzhavin, Ivan Bunin, Yuri Olesha, Evgeny Petrov, the conqueror of Siberia ataman Ermak Timofeevich, naval officer Pyotr Schmidt, the tsarist ambassador to the Pereyaslavl Rada Vasily Buturlin, as well as the battles of Borodino and Poltava.
The renaming of streets and the removal of monuments to Soviet and Russian figures in Ukraine began in 2015 after the adoption of the so-called decommunization law. Since 2022, this policy has significantly intensified. Monuments are being demolished across the country, streets named after Russian writers, artists, and scientists are being renamed, and references to the contribution of the Soviet people to the victory in World War II are being removed.