譯/莊蕙嘉
再見了托爾斯泰!烏克蘭拚去俄殖民化
Far from Ukraine's embattled eastern front, a new struggle is being waged — not from the trenches, but over leafy side streets and broad avenues. That is where the enemy goes by the name Pavlov. Or Tchaikovsky. Or Catherine the Great.
距離烏克蘭東部激烈戰鬥的前線遙遠之處,一場新的搏鬥正在進行;不是來自壕溝,而是枝繁葉茂的街道和寬闊大道。那是使用敵人名字的地方,帕夫洛夫,或柴可夫斯基,或凱薩琳大帝。
Across Ukraine, officials are starting projects to, as they say, "decolonize" their cities. Streets and subway stops whose names evoke the history of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union are under scrutiny by a population eager to rid itself of traces of the nation that invaded in late February.
在烏克蘭各地,官員正開始他們所說的城市「去殖民化」計畫,會讓人想起俄羅斯或蘇聯歷史的街道和地鐵站名稱,正被仔細檢視,他們急切想擺脫今年二月下旬入侵的那個國家的痕跡。
"We are defending our country, also on the cultural front lines," said Andriy Moskalenko, deputy mayor of Lviv and head of a committee that has reviewed the names of each of the city's more than 1,000 streets.
「我們正在保衛國家,在文化前線亦是。」利維夫副市長莫斯卡蘭科說,他也是一個委員會的主席,逐一審查該市1000多條街道名稱。
It is not the first time Ukraine has undertaken such an effort: After the fall of the Soviet Union, it was one of many Eastern European countries that renamed streets and removed statues commemorating an era of communist rule that became synonymous with totalitarianism.
這並非烏克蘭首次採取類似嘗試。蘇聯解體後,許多東歐國家重新命名街道及移除紀念共產統治時代、成為極權主義同義詞的雕像,它也是其中之一。
This time, the decision to erase Russian names is not just a symbol of defiance toward the invasion and Soviet history, said Vasyl Kmet, a historian at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. It is also about reasserting a Ukrainian identity that many feel has been repressed under centuries of domination by its more powerful neighbor, he said.
國立利維夫大學歷史學家克梅說,這一次刪去俄國名稱的決定,不止是反抗侵略和蘇聯歷史的象徵而已。這也關乎重新確認烏克蘭的認同,他說,在更強大的鄰居數個世紀以來主導下,許多人覺得一直受到壓迫。
The western city of Lviv is one of many areas undertaking "decolonization" campaigns. So, too, is the northwestern city of Lutsk, which plans to rename over 100 streets. In the southern port city of Odesa, whose inhabitants are mostly Russian-speaking, politicians are debating whether to remove a monument to Catherine the Great, the Russian empress who founded the city in 1794.
西部城市利維夫是著手進行「去殖民化」的許多地區之一,西北部城市盧斯科也計畫重新命名逾百條街道。在說俄語居民占多數的南部港都敖德薩,政客正爭辯是否要移除一座凱薩琳大帝紀念碑,這位俄羅斯帝國女皇於1794年建立這座城市。
In Kyiv, the capital, the city council is looking into renaming the Leo Tolstoy subway stop after Vasyl Stus, a Ukrainian poet and dissident.
在首都基輔,市議會正研究要把托爾斯泰地鐵站重新命名,以烏克蘭異議詩人瓦西里.斯圖斯取而代之。
And it's not only Russian names that are under scrutiny. The Lviv committee also plans to delete street names in tribute to some Ukrainians. One is named after writer Petro Kozlaniuk, who collaborated with Soviet security agencies, including the KGB.
這並非唯一一個遭到檢視的俄國名字。利維夫的委員會也計畫刪去原本就用來紀念烏克蘭人物的街道名,其中一條以作家彼得.科茲蘭紐克命名,他曾和蘇聯安全機構合作,包括蘇聯國家安全委員會。
Removing the names of some cultural icons — has proved more divisive. The history of figures like Pyotr Tchaikovsky can be tricky: The classical composer's family roots were in modern-day Ukraine, and some musicologists say his works were inspired by Ukrainian folk music.
除去一些文化象徵已證實會加劇分裂,像是柴可夫斯基這樣的歷史人物就很棘手。這位古典作曲家的家族根源位於現代烏克蘭境內,一些音樂學者說,他的作品受烏克蘭民謠音樂啟發。
But the committee's ruling was unanimous: Tchaikovsky would go.
但是委員會一致通過:柴可夫斯基要刪掉。