Posted on 09/12/2019 2:34:30 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
A district assembly in Prague voted on Thursday to remove a statue of a Soviet World War Two marshal and replace it with a more general memorial following a row that has drawn in the Czech president and Russian authorities.
The statue of Marshal Ivan Konev, who led the Red Army forces that liberated most of Czechoslovakia and entered Prague on May 9, 1945, was erected in 1980. It has been the subject of controversy since the 1989 fall of communism because of Konevs later endeavors, which included a leading role in crushing the 1956 Hungarian uprising as well as building the Berlin Wall in 1961. Czech historians say he was involved in Russian reconnaissance efforts ahead of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. Russia has disputed his involvement.
The statue has been repeatedly defaced with red and pink paint in recent years, leading the Prague 6 district leadership to cover it up with tarp last month and consider its removal.That sparked anger among pro-Russian activists who repeatedly tore down the tarp covering the statue. The Russian embassy also protested, saying covering the statue was a desecration of the memory of fallen Red Army soldiers.
We consider the decision today... on the transfer of the monument to Marshal I.S Konev to be egregious, the Russian embassy in Prague said in a statement after Thursdays vote...We hope that despite todays decision of the local authorities the monument of I.S. Konev will remain in its historical place, the embassy said.
The mayor of Prague 6, Ondrej Kolar, had been given police protection after anonymous death threats.
Russias culture minister likened Kolar to a Nazi party official over the issue, according to Russias TASS agency.
Soviet-era war monuments have caused a stir in other places in eastern Europe.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Give it to San Francisco, they’ll appreciate it.
‘Liberated’ is a strong word.
Sanitizing history is a messy business
...and a slippery slope. Just ask South Carolina and New Orleans.
FR Putin puffers will have a meltdown...lol
ROFLMAO!!!
For a Very Serious Guy, you make some of the funniest #$#ing comments no the board pretty often :)
I don’t see this as sanitizing history. The Soviets may have “liberated” Czechoslovakia form the Germans, but they also enslaved the country with Communism. The majority of the Czech people despise Communism and the Russians because of the suffering and death they caused. The pro Russian element in the Czech Republic are idiots.
They’ll reject it. Not fag enough..
They traded one set of chains for the other.
We hear the same thing about the Confederates here in Virginia
There is a difference between this Konev controversy and the one involving Confederate generals. The Konev statue is on the soil of a different country. If the Czechs want it gone for whatever reason, gone it should be.
Ship the statue back to Russia, and let them set it up there. And by the way, theres nothing wrong with the Russians honoring Konev. That guy kicked some serious Nazi butt.
Confederates didn’t liquidate 100 million plus
5 picture slide show at the link.
It’s an ugly statue.
Doesn’t appear all that imposing.
They could do this with statue.
I agree under those terms that if the Czechs want it removed and returned to the Russians, that is their sovereign right to do so.
However, theres a danger of knee jerking to wiping away history by taking down manifestations of it for the sake of PC or making points. Its a soft form of tyranny, no matter who performs it or what their ostensible reason is for doing it.
...and its intellectually lazy, to boot. If anything, the statue should be explained truthfully to future generations for what it represented at the time it was installed.
“Red Army forces that liberated most of Czechoslovakia”
Liberated?
Who the he[[ are they kidding?
Memento Park
Memento Park is an open-air museum in Budapest, Hungary, dedicated to monumental statues and sculpted plaques from Hungary's Communist period (19491989). There are statues of Lenin, Marx, and Engels, as well as several Hungarian Communist leaders. The park was designed by Hungarian architect Ákos Eleőd, who won the competition announced by the Budapest General Assembly in 1991. On public transport diagrams and other documents the park is usually shown as Memorial Park.
A quote by the architect on the project: "This park is about dictatorship. And at the same time, because it can be talked about, described, built, this park is about democracy. After all, only democracy is able to give the opportunity to let us think freely about dictatorship."
The Confederates were literally traitors to their country. Konev wasnt a traitor.
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