With 2014 in the political life of the post-Soviet world has entered new concept – “war of monuments”. For the first time this wording appeared in the text of the official release of the Russian foreign Ministry about the demolition in the city of Limanowa (Poland) the monument of gratitude to the red army.
Monuments are always more than symbolic signs of the past. They are the guardians of continuity the history of the people, whatever revolutions and coups on the part of the people fell out.
We are already a quarter of a century are witnessing the war of monuments in the Baltic States, Georgia, now this war is raging in Ukraine. Ukrainian pravoseki, supported by the authorities, destroying the monuments of the Russian Soviet past, probably with the same ferocity with which the terrorist organization “Islamic state” destroys the monuments of pre-Islamic culture in the middle East.
It would seem that Belarus as Russia’s ally immune from such phenomena. In the Republic very much is being done for the conservation and enhancement of monumental heritage of the great Patriotic war, monuments and Museum complexes of other eras.
However difficult to completely avoid getting sick when around a raging epidemic.
The problem is complicated by the fact that in recent years the authorities of Belarus do not occupy a clear position in this matter. Public supporters of the “European choice” posing as the Belarusian people, step by step, conquers the space and goes on the offensive in the cultural and historical front.
Instead of the demolished monuments appear new, for the most part return of the Belarusians in the times of the Commonwealth and the rule of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility – the monuments of Radziwill, Sapieha, Olgerd, Manusco, Kosciusko, Kalinowski. True, there is “parity” establish a monument to Alexander Nevsky, Pushkin, Patriarch Alexy II, but this symbiotic relationship only increases the tension in the Belarusian society, not satisfying neither the majority, which does not oppose itself to Russia and Russian or minority, which is cultivated anti-Russian consciousness.
In this debate supporters of the “European choice” behave more aggressively. They’re advancing. Propaganda, and even direct physical exposures are not so much the Soviet monuments in Belarus is not yet passed – the memory of the partisan past of the people), how many monuments related to the pre-revolutionary Russian history and Russian culture.
Lately there have been several such incidents. Recall just about three, caused the most noise.
In 2014 it was discovered that vandals smashed a memorial stone on the site of the death of the hero of the Patriotic war of 1812 of General Yakov Kulnev in the Polotsk district, Vitebsk region. The perpetrators were never found, and all was blamed on hooliganism. Meanwhile in 2012-2014 Belarus held a campaign associated with the 200th anniversary of the war of 1812; the war of the Belarusian nationalists, meeting no resistance from authorities, declared “alien to the Belarusians,” not domestic, “Russian-French”, “Belarusians brought a lot of trouble.”
In March 2015, the monument to Generalissimo Alexander Suvorov in the town of Kobrin (Brest region) provincial evrointegratory hung a sign: “I am Russian invader! I only participated in wars of conquest. I burned Belarusian villages and their inhabitants enslaved… with My hands in the blood of your ancestors!”
6 June 2015, the birthday of A. S. Pushkin in Mogilev was the bust of the great Russian poet, and a week from the pedestal broke a Board with lines of the poem “to the Slanderers of Russia” and symbolically coincided with the desecration of a monument to the Day of Russia on June 12. (From Pushkin’s lines, written in 1831, on the eve of the siege by Russian troops of the rebellious Warsaw, back in the days some were covered a shiver of excitement, others of the liberal indignation and fear: “You menacing in words – try it! // Or the old hero, late to bed // Not able to screw his Izmail bayonet? // Ile of the Russian Tsar already powerless word? // Or we argue with Europe’s new? Ile Russian victories weaned from? Or a little of us?…”)
All the appeals to restore the monument in its present form, the government refused.
A few days ago, on 17 September 2016, in Kobrin (Brest region) the incident occurred close in meaning to the desecration of a monument in Mogilev. According to the official version, the driver of the meat from Brest, who brought an RV products to local cafes, unsuccessfully turn around and, not noticing the Suvorov monument near the Museum, demolished it, moving backwards.
At the scene “happened” to be known Kobrin supporter of the “European choice” Viktor Gorbachev, who immediately caught the fallen bust of the Generalissimo, posted a photo online and commented: “Today in Kobrin by dangerous and precise manoeuvring destroyed monument to the executioner of the Belarus — Suvorov. Yay! So much better. Thanks to the driver of the Brest meat-packing plant”.
This information blew the nationalist media. A day later, when the news came on the leading Belarusian Internet-portal tut.by started new comments. Here are the most typical: “I Propose not to restore, and to send cod to the land of their conqueror. And in the Park to dismantle” (seraffina), “All these statues of Lenin, Kalinin, Dzerzhinsky, Suvorov to collect and export in Russia, then they have no place” (oldash13), “Youth knows who is Suvorov-the hangman” (Pikes).
Remember the commentators and the story of the bust of Suvorov in Vitebsk. About 15 years ago in Vitebsk nationalists night dismantled a bust of the Generalissimo on the street named after him, but was caught red-handed and the bust is now in the same place.
It would seem that in Belarus there is the Suvorov military school, the Museum of the great commander in the army of Suvorov’s revered traditions. But…
In General, in Kobrin three of the monument to Suvorov – carried camper bust outside the Museum, another bust in the Park (the one that hung abusive signs) and the monument in full growth. Here there was a manor of Alexander Suvorov Kobrin key, granted to the commander in eternal and hereditary possession” of the Empress Catherine II after the suppression of Suvorov Polish gentry rebellion in 1794-1795 Kosciuszko. Then decisive action of A. V. Suvorov led to the defeat of the rebels who wanted to restore the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the borders of 1772 and return under Polish domination of the liberated Catherine Belarusian and little Russian land. The Belarusian peasants and commoners during the rebellion helped the Russian army, saw them as their protectors and liberators, Polish gentry perceived the campaign of Suvorov completely different. As a result of the defeat of Suvorov troops kościuszko in 1795, the Commonwealth ceased to exist, and the lands of Small and White Russia, captured once by the poles, was reunited with Russia. Native Polish territory was divided between Prussia and Austria.
Another memorable date. In Soviet Belarus on 17 September 1939 was celebrated as the start date of the liberation campaign of the red army, which Western Belarus and Western Ukraine was liberated after 20 years of Polish occupation and became part of the USSR. Then in the BSSR and the USSR came back and the city of Kobrin. After the victory in the great Patriotic war in Kobrin was opened in the military historical Museum of A. V. Suvorov, existing to this day.
The driver of the slaughterhouse demolished his van, a bust of the Russian commander just exactly on September 17th! (Also symbols formed by the driver). And they say that anti-Sovietism and Russophobia – the phenomenon of a different nature.
Belarusian media reported that the bust of Suvorov defeated the will return to the place, but not immediately. After the restoration.
Remember the comment on the Belarusian Internet user: “Youth knows who is Suvorov-the hangman”. With education such hatred all started in Ukraine.
The authorities have avoided the incident is the complete silence in the official media was not a single report of the incident.
At the time, the vandals who tried to destroy the bust of Suvorov in Vitebsk, escaped with minimal punishment: it turns out that the Vitebsk bust did not appear in the official list of Belarusian historical and cultural values. The same situation is with the demolition of the bust of Suvorov in Kobrin, even though he is a bronze copy of the sculpture of Suvorov’s portrait work P. Kyuferle 1901 and bust in the Park – a copy of the work also 1901 by the sculptor N. And. Rukavishnikova. Both monuments have a close artistic and historical value. Undoubted and value of a monument to Suvorov in full growth Kobrin at the intersection of streets Soviet and Pushkin, created by the Leningrad sculptor V. S. Chebotaryov in 1964.
Probably at the level of the Federal state ought to pay more attention to the common cultural-historical heritage of our peoples.
After all, the aim is not just to monuments – aim at the all-Russian unity, trying to erase the historical memory. While some young Belarusian guys are proud to wear uniforms in the Minsk Suvorov military school, while others sow hatred “Suvorov hangman”.
Ivan ANDREEV
