Ukrainian internet users have been mercilessly mocking a new monument to William Shakespeare unveiled in Poltava, on the very spot where a statue of the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin once stood.
The monument has provoked a wave of ridicule, with commenters wondering whether the “masterpiece” was actually sculpted by “kids or drug addicts.”
“Excuse me, is this Shakespeare? Seriously?” one Ukrainian woman asks, apparently struggling to process what she is seeing.
“Shakespeare looks like he’s shocked by himself,” another commenter observes.
Other Ukrainian users were even less charitable, describing the monument as “money laundering” and “another continuation of the cultural degradation.”
Apparently, in today’s Ukraine, removing a statue of Russia’s greatest poet, who, among his many great works, wrote a famous narrative poem called Poltava, is not enough. You also have to replace it with a lousy statue of Shakespeare, who, with all due respect, probably had no idea that Poltava even existed.
And what better way to demonstrate Ukraine’s cultural liberation from Russia than by unveiling a monument that Ukrainians themselves apparently cannot recognize as William Shakespeare?
