The monument to V. I. Lenin at the top of Aurakatu on Puolalanmäki in Turku consisted of a bronze bust and commemorative plaque. The work was a gift from the city of Leningrad to its sister city in 1977. The monument was a visible symbol of the era of Finlandisation. It was not merely a memorial, but a tool of political messaging. The bust represented a system in which culture, art, and public space were subordinate to political strategy. The work reflected a cautious foreign policy climate, which required Finland to repeatedly perform rituals of friendliness towards the Soviet Union.

From the beginning, the monument attracted criticism. Turku’s Museum Centre has compiled a significant archive of documentation on acts of vandalism directed at the statue over the decades. The situation changed dramatically with the outbreak of war in Ukraine. The city decided to remove the monument in April 2022. The decision stated that “the bust itself poses no threat to anyone,” but “nonetheless represents a particularly undemocratic and tragic period in human history, and an ideology that does not align with the City of Turku’s core values and strategy, which emphasise forward-looking renewal and the equal rights of all people.”

Over the decades, the idea of removing the monument had been raised many times, sparking heated debate both for and against. Twenty-three years before its removal, Professor Luigi G. de Anna wrote polemically in Turun Sanomat (12 January 1999):

“Guest writer and chair of the Cultural Board, Voitto Ranne (National Coalition Party), dislikes Lenin (TS 10.1), or at least the idea of his statue in a public space; he proposes relocating it indoors, perhaps to a museum basement.

I don’t like Lenin either. I have opposed communism both politically and culturally my entire life. Still, the Lenin statue is better left where it is. It symbolises a time that is part not only of Turku’s but also Finland’s history, however good or bad that may be. Moving the statue elsewhere would be as foolish an act as erecting it was in the first place.

Whenever an empire or social order collapses, statues fall with it. Often the same people who erected them – politicians, mayors, city councillors – are the ones who want them gone when the political winds shift; perhaps believing they can erase all traces of their responsibility in the process.

The ancient Romans called this ”damnatio memoriae” – the condemnation of memory. Modern-day Turku residents need not do the same to Lenin’s statue.”