Poland destruction of monuments to Soviet soldiers. The heirs of the traitors: the expert told why Soviet monuments are being demolished in Poland. FAN TV. War with the dead

In Poland came into force the law on the demolition of monuments to Soviet soldiers. More than half a million soldiers and officers of the Red Army died during the liberation of the country from the Nazi occupation. The authorities now want to erase the memory of their feat. However, not all Poles agree with this.

Ruins, dirt and weeds are all that remains of the monument to General Chernyakhovsky in the Polish town of Penenzhno. The same fate is likely to await hundreds of memorials to the Red Army across the country. For a year now, according to the law on decommunization, streets have been renamed in Poland. Today, new amendments to this document come into force - now they will take up the monuments, they will be demolished. Now almost 500 monuments are under the gun, of which 230 are dedicated to Soviet soldiers.

“All objects dedicated to the Red Army propagate the totalitarian system. They must disappear from the public space,” says Daniel Markowski, specialist of the Bureau for the Commemoration of Struggle and Martyrdom at the Institute of National Remembrance of Poland.

Over 600,000 Soviet soldiers are buried in Polish soil. Society argues: why disturb their memory? Seimas deputy Kornel Morawiecki has been an ardent anti-communist since 1968. But even he voted against the amendments to the law.

“The Germans wanted to exterminate us as a nation, but the Russians did not. We must be honest. Monuments do not need to be demolished. People died for us, and they deserve to have their memory immortalized,” he says.

However, not all monuments are planned to be destroyed. The amendments contain exceptions. This so-called "totalitarian symbol" in Olsztyn is a local landmark. The sculptural composition was created by a famous Polish architect, they even lead excursions here. Olsztyn city center. The main church, next to several administrative buildings and a memorial of gratitude to the Red Army. It is located on the most that neither is on public display, and yet it does not threaten dismantling. The fact is that the monument is included in the list of Polish monuments of architecture, and the law on decommunization does not yet apply to such objects.

Another exception is the monuments that are located in burial places. They are legally not allowed to be touched. Knowing this, activists are trying to save some monuments, public organization"Kursk" - it was named after the Battle of Kursk - is ready to repair the monument in Lidzbark-Warminsky at its own expense and install it on military cemetery. So far, Warsaw orders to demolish it, but the locals are against it.

“They were people just like us. What difference does it make whether they are communists or not. They fought here and died,” says local resident Marek Essen.

“Repair it and leave it in place. We must respect the memory of the soldiers,” say the students of the local school.

Forty kilometers from here is another monument that requires care, a modest monument to the Hero of the Soviet Union Pyotr Dernov. In January 1945, in the battles for these places, he covered the German bunker with his chest. Now the monument is abandoned and desecrated.

“We need to clean the stone, remove all graffiti, letters, remove all paint,” says Jerzy Tyts. He and his friends take care of such monuments all over Poland. Not to forget about the feat of Soviet soldiers, Tytsu was punished by her mother, in the winter of 1945 she was pulled out from under fire by a Red Army soldier. On account - already 27 restored monuments and five cemeteries put in order. The nationalists threaten him, break out new red stars on the graves, fill the monuments with paint. But Jerzy defied unconsciousness and does not back down.

“This is a struggle for memory, for truth, between our organization and the government. It's all their fault. Young people, fooled by anti-Russian propaganda, come to the cemetery. And they consider themselves freedom fighters,” says Jerzy Tyts.

Tyts is convinced that in the impulse of decommunization, the current government will not stop at the monuments, sooner or later they will get to the cemeteries.

In any case, Moscow will not leave unfriendly actions of Warsaw without consequences. The department added that the measures would be "asymmetric".

As sources in Russian diplomatic circles told the publication, several options are being considered: personal sanctions against Polish politicians involved in the development of the law, economic measures of influence and active work on various international platforms to draw attention to this problem.

One of Moscow's likely responses to Poland's actions is the introduction of personal sanctions against Polish politicians - the authors of this law, as well as a significant decrease in the level of Russian-Polish economic relations.

- It is necessary to introduce sanctions against the authors of the law, who promoted and lobbied it, and to interrupt economic relations between Russian and Polish regions. I will support any sanctions that will be proposed,” the first deputy chairman of the committee on international affairs commented on these initiatives.

Restrictions may also apply to some other actions in relation to other people, Oleg, a member of the Federation Council, believes.

“After all, someone will make decisions on the demolition of monuments, their dismantling. This will also be done by certain institutions, authorities and specific characters. And they can be subject to sanctions. There is a proposal of public and civil order: to take out the monuments that they want to demolish in Poland, to create conditions for their preservation on the territory of Russia,” Morozov said.

“Such a reaction is accepted in diplomacy. But she does not exclude other actions. There are 38 people from the Polish side who were the initiators of this law. They have consecrated the document with their signature - appropriate measures can be taken against them, ”the senator notes.

“As an answer, one could also put a monument next to the Kremlin.

This will not only be a symbol of the proud Russian spirit that liberated the Kremlin in 1612 from the Polish invaders, but also an image of the Poles themselves. There is no need to demolish the existing Polish monuments in Russia, but it is possible to erect monuments-pillars in honor of the employees of the Polish regime. For example, in honor of the dictator of Poland, Jozef Beck, ”the political scientist suggested.

“The monstrous Polish Russophobia is pragmatic and aimed at justifying and establishing Poland's dominance over Russian residents in Ukraine. Therefore, the most correct answer would be to take some action to help the Russians, who are groaning under the yoke of the Bandera dictatorship in Kyiv and other cities, ”Markov noted.

July 17th President of Poland Andrzej Duda signed a law on the demolition of all monuments Soviet era. Hundreds of monuments will go under the bulldozer, but the true goal of the purge is to reformat the consciousness of millions of Poles.

The Polish Sejm adopted this scandalous law on June 22. The document enters into force 3 months after signing by the president, it prescribes to dismantle all monuments dedicated to people or events "symbolizing communism or another totalitarian system." An exception is made for memorials in burial places, works of art and scientific exhibits. Why such a law was needed, AiF.ru told Director of the Russian-Polish Center for Dialogue and Accord Foundation Yuri Bondarenko.

Vitaly Tseplyaev, AiF.ru: - Yuri Konstantinovich, first of all, what kind of monuments are we talking about?

Yuri Bondarenko: — About the monuments to Soviet soldiers that still stand on the streets and squares of Polish cities. Of course, they have been removed before. For example, back in 1991, a monument to Marshal Konev, who saved this city from destruction, was demolished in Krakow. In 2011, the Monument to the Soviet-Polish Brotherhood in Arms, which the whole country knew, was dismantled in Warsaw - it was removed under the pretext of building a metro line, promising to be installed elsewhere. Yes, they never installed ... In May 2014, the famous Monument of Gratitude was liquidated in Katowice Soviet army. In 2015, in the city of Penenzhno, the authorities demolished the monument to the General of the Army, twice Hero Soviet Union Ivan Chernyakhovsky.

However, according to various estimates, in Poland there are still from 200 to 500 similar monuments dedicated to the Soviet-Polish military brotherhood during the Second World War. There are especially many of them in the west of the country - in those territories that became part of Poland following the war.

These are Wroclaw, Szczecin, and others. And there, by the way, the attitude towards these monuments differs from the average - the monuments remind residents of the one thanks to whom these territories became Polish.

- Why was this "tolerable" law adopted?

— The conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS), which is now ruling in the country, has been moving towards this for a long time. This party claims to be the most Russophobic political force in the country. Apparently, they decided that it was enough to bother with each Soviet monument individually, to put pressure on local authorities, to be cunning and come up with plausible pretexts for demolition, to argue with those who did not agree with the new interpretation of history. It is easier to pass a law and demolish all the monuments with chokhs. And since PiS controls both houses of parliament and the president, it was not difficult for them to pass such a law.

The task, I think, is very simple - to rewrite the history of the country under a new concept, according to which Poland smoothly moved from German occupation to Soviet. That is, it was not free for exactly half a century, from 1939 to 1989. And if this is so, then how can monuments be erected to one of these occupiers? At the same time, the authors of this initiative emphasize all the time that they do not touch the burial places of Soviet soldiers - they say, we are good Catholics, we do not disturb the ashes of the dead ...

This is not part of the state policy - it is the state policy itself, riddled with Russophobia. According to this policy, all those who fought for the liberation of the country from half a century of occupation with weapons in their hands are heroes. Everyone who is possible is pulled out of the historical closet: both those who fled abroad during the time of the People's Republic, and those who, like "forest brothers" in the Baltics, fought with local administrations - by the way, they are called "damned soldiers" in Poland. Like their Baltic counterparts, these "people's avengers" were still those heroes - they massacred the civilian population, women, children ...

- While Poland is actively fighting the monuments of the Soviet era, such "exploits" are not heard in other countries of the former socialist camp. Why?

“Poland aspires to be the most pro-American country in Europe today. However, some representatives of the Polish intelligentsia dreamed about this back in the years Soviet power- there was even a joke about the fact that Poland will become the 51st state of the United States. Indeed, nothing like the Polish “war on memory” is happening either in Hungary or in Slovakia, where there are also enough monuments to Soviet soldiers. Say, in Bratislava, no one encroaches on the majestic memorial Complex Slavin, created in memory of the thousands of Soviet soldiers who died during the liberation of the country and its capital.

June 22 The Polish Sejm amends the law "On Prohibition of Propaganda of Communism or Other Totalitarian System". They give the municipal authorities the right to demolish "communist" monuments. The Russian Foreign Ministry decided the Seimas "shameful mockery" of the memory of the Soviet soldiers and officers who died during the liberation of Poland in 1944-1945. On July 25, the Federation Council turned to Vladimir Putin with a request to impose sanctions against Poland.

Poland is not the first country to dismantle monuments erected during the Soviet Union. Since 2015, Ukraine has had a number of decommunization laws in place, allowing the demolition of monuments to Soviet power across the country.

In July 2014, a monument to Soviet soldiers was demolished in the city of Limanow in southern Poland, as " appearance the monument spoiled the park landscape. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the demolition of the monument a “blasphemous act,” and added that they regard it as unleashing a “war of monuments.”

In July 2015, a monument to the Soviet-Polish brotherhood was dismantled in the city of Nowa Sol in western Poland. The mayor of the city, according to a media report citing his Facebook page, described the demolished monument as "huge, disgusting, constantly dirty, with rusty water flowing out." On the site of the monument, it was planned to erect a monument to the heroes of the struggle for Poland.

Since January 2014, a discussion has begun on the dismantling of the monument to Soviet General Ivan Chernyakhovsky at the site of his death in the city of Pienenzhno in northern Poland. The Russian Foreign Ministry several times expressed indignation at the decision to dismantle the memorial and demanded that its demolition be prevented, but in September 2015, they nevertheless began to dismantle it. The monument itself was planned to be handed over to the Russian side.

Ivan Chernyakhovsky - Soviet military leader, army general, in April 1944 was appointed commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front. On February 18, 1945, he was wounded by fragments of an artillery shell and died the same day. Buried in Vilnius.

In the photo: the dismantling of the monument "Monument to the Chekists - fighters of the Revolution"

In the spring of 2015, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a package of laws on decommunization, which, among other things, involves the demolition of monuments to communist leaders. According to the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, as of December 2016, more than 1,300 monuments and memorials to Vladimir Lenin, as well as more than 1,000 monuments and memorials to other leaders, were demolished in the country. Most of the monuments and memorials to Soviet leaders were dismantled in the Poltava, Kharkov and Zaporozhye regions. The dismantling of monuments to Soviet leaders continues.

Uzbekistan

In March 2015, in the city of Angren, Tashkent region of Uzbekistan, an obelisk was dismantled, erected in memory of local residents who died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. The administration of the region and the mayor of the city, in response to public discontent, subsequently reported that by September 1, 2015, they were going to install the monument "Symbol of Peace" on the site of the monument.

Photo: Nacionala apvieniba‏ / Twitter

In August 2016, the Latvian organization "Daugava Hawks" (established in a prisoner of war camp in Belgium (Zedelheim) in 1945 by former Latvian SS legionnaires) achieved the demolition of a monument to Soviet sailors in the city of Limbazi. The representative of the organization explained the demolition by the fact that the sailors to whom the monument was erected died in battles with local nationalists, and the Soviet military personnel "were engaged in looting." Officially, local authorities referred to the fact that the monument was in disrepair. Representatives of the Latvian Foreign Ministry stated that the local authorities acted in the interests of the population's safety.

In July 2015, sculptures of workers and soldiers installed on a bridge in the city center were dismantled in Vilnius. The condition of the sculptures was cited as the reason. An article about the discontent of the local Russian-speaking population was published by the Guardian. In February 2017, there were reports that the possibility of transferring the sculptures to the Lithuanian Art Museum was being considered, which in turn could transfer them to a park in the city of Druskininkai, which has a collection of dismantled Soviet monuments.