The Viktor Bazhan Poltava Art Museum intends to acquire the monument to the Russian writer Mykhail Bulgakov, which was dismantled in Kyiv on June 4, 2026, from the sculptor’s family. This action is planned to preserve it for future generations.
Viktor Bazhan, the founder of the museum, shared this information with Suspilne.
“I plan to purchase the monument to preserve it for future generations, and also to relieve the sculptor’s daughter, who currently owns the monument, of this burdensome responsibility. I am concerned that artistic heritage is disappearing. Mykhail Bulgakov is a globally renowned writer, translated into many languages. Of course, I do not intend to popularize or glorify Bulgakov, which is also prohibited by law. Therefore, I will not create an exhibition from the monument. I simply plan to keep it for safekeeping in the museum’s courtyard. This is my private property,” Viktor Bazhan explained.
According to him, negotiations regarding the monument’s cost are currently underway with the sculptor’s family. Subsequently, the monument will be transported and installed in the courtyard of the Bazhan museum.
Who was Mykhail Bulgakov and his connection to Kyiv
Mykhail Bulgakov was a writer of Russian origin, born in Kyiv, where he spent a significant part of his life and where a literary and memorial museum now operates in the house where he lived.
Although his personality and works are closely linked to Kyiv’s history, he did not support the idea of Ukrainian independence and spoke negatively about the formation of Ukrainian statehood and its leaders.
An expert commission of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance concluded that his literary legacy contains manifestations of biased and negative attitudes towards the Ukrainian world, the Ukrainian language, and statehood, and that his works represent an imperial position that denies the existence of the Ukrainian nation as a separate value.
Bulgakov’s works feature crude caricatures and grotesque depictions of Ukrainians, and his writings interpret part of Russian imperial policy that denies Ukrainians the right to their own identity.
At a session on December 18, 2025, the Kyiv City Council supported the removal of 15 more objects and elements associated with the Russian Empire and the USSR from Kyiv’s streets. In particular, the decision was made to dismantle the monument to Bulgakov.
The decision sparked lively public reaction: some Ukrainians called it a logical step of de-Russification, while others referred to it as “cultural destruction” or “hasty de-communization.”
Specifically, Candidate of Historical Sciences **Oleksandr Bon** noted that the decision, though overdue, was necessary. In his opinion, removing monuments has nothing to do with “banning culture” – it is merely a rejection of imperial symbols that subconsciously foster a sense of cultural inferiority among Ukrainians.
Writer **Oksana Zabuzhko** expressed a similar view. She urged to perceive this as clearing the space of “monumental propaganda from the Kremlin.”
Conversely, writer **Lada Luzina** labeled the assertions about Bulgakov’s “Ukrainophobia” as manipulation, arguing that there is no real evidence of Bulgakov’s Ukrainophobia. Publisher **Oleksandr Krasovitsky** noted that while the writer was part of imperial Kyiv, he was simultaneously a figure in the global literary canon.
The monument to Mykhail Bulgakov on Andriyivskyy Descent in Kyiv was dismantled on June 4, 2026.