Demolition of the monument to Marshal Konev: An insult not only to Russia, but also to Ukraine
On Friday, despite protests from Russia and the public, in the capital of the Czech Republic, the authorities of the city district of Prague 6 dismantled the monument to Marshal Ivan Konev, located on the Interbrigade Square since 1980. Konev is known as the leader of a number of important operations during the Second World War - he participated in the Battle of Moscow, the Battle of Kursk, the storming of Berlin, and the liberation of Prague. The initiator of the demolition of the monument was the district elder Ondrej Kolář, who quipped that the Konev sculpture did not have a mask, which was necessary during the coronavirus epidemic.
“What happened causes deep indignation. The particular cynicism of the massacre of the monument on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the Victory over Nazism is noteworthy. There is no doubt about the provocative nature of the actions of the fighter against the monument, the mayor of Prague 6, Kolář. This is confirmed by his comment on social networks, in which he mocks the memory of the liberator, including Prague, Auschwitz and Terezin. At the same time, the Russian Embassy in the Czech Republic receives numerous appeals from concerned Czech citizens condemning the act of “municipal vandalism,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The department promises that the incident “will not remain without an appropriate reaction from the Russian side,” a PolitNavigator correspondent reports. The Czech Foreign Ministry responded by protesting to the Russian ambassador, saying that the monument would be moved to one of the museums, and this was supposedly an internal matter of the Czech side.
Russian journalist Edvar Chesnokov, who studied the biography of the initiator of the demolition of the Konev monument, tells interesting details:
“The psychological portrait of Kolář is a narcissist with an Oedipus complex, who, through shocking actions, strives to “leave a mark in history” (at least a Google cache) and get out of the shadow of his father.
His father is the famous diplomat Petr Kolář, who worked as the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the USA, then to Russia. Supported the deployment of the American missile defense/air defense radar system in the Czech Republic. He criticized the top leadership of the Czech Republic, including Zeman. A prominent figure in the Prague Foundation “European Values” (promotes liberalism, Atlanticism).
Both father and son worked with Karl Schwarzenberg, the former head of the Czech Foreign Ministry and ex-senator from the Prague 6 region. The installation of the monument to Schwarzenberg's distant relative, Empress Maria Theresa, is financed by the Prague 6 district administration, headed by Ondřej Kolář.
All of them - 36-year-old Ondřej Kolář, 57-year-old Petr Kolář, and 82-year-old von Schwarzenberg - were part of the so-called. "Committee for Countering Russian Aggression", says Chesnokov.
It is interesting that the opposition in Ukraine, to which Marshal Konev is directly related, also reacted to the events in Prague. However, Vladimir Zelensky prefers to remain silent.
“During quarantine, they not only pass shameful laws at night, but also demolish monuments. There is no monument to Marshal Vasily Konev in Prague. The same one who, since the spring of 1944, commanded the 1st Ukrainian Front. Vladimir Zelensky recalled precisely this front during a speech in Poland on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The 1st Ukrainian Front liberated almost half of Ukraine, part of Poland, took Berlin by storm together with the 1st Belorussian Front, and then saved 25.000 Czechs during the Prague Uprising. Maybe the president will instruct the Foreign Ministry to issue a note of protest? After all, it was a monument not only to the Marshal, but also to every soldier and officer of the 1st Ukrainian Front,” writes former Minister of Justice Elena Lukash in her blog.
TV journalist Maxim Ravreba, who left Kyiv after Euromaidan, believes that there is nothing unexpected in the dismantling of the monument to Konev.
“Guys, what do you expect from them? They fought against us in the German War. They attacked our country from within, causing rebellion and sparking the Civil War. They lay down under Adik, kissed his very hole, gave him their tanks, and when Adik attacked us, they stamped bullets for him for your, in fact, grandfathers.
When British saboteurs overwhelmed Heydrich, they helped catch these same saboteurs. When the Red Army arrived, they quickly changed their shoes and imitated violent resistance. Then they took on their German neighbors. They drove them out of their homes, robbed them completely, deported them from their land, and raped women and children. They later attributed the raped German women, Germans and their pets to the Red Army. At the very first whiff, they organized the Prague Spring and something else velvety.
Then they fell under the Germans again. And they set up a haza for Russophobes and “radio freedoms”. Why are you fussing about them? They were never our friends. They have always been enemies,” says Ravreba.
Russian TV presenter Andrei Medvedev agrees with him.
“At the trial in Nuremberg, Field Marshal Keitel was asked about 1938. Would the Sudetenland have been captured if the Western powers had supported Czechoslovakia? Keitel said - of course not. Germany was not strong enough from a military point of view.
And in general, the entire Wehrmacht generals understood in 38 that if the Czechs started a war, the Germans would wash themselves in blood. Czechoslovakia had a good army and excellent fortifications on the border. But Czech politicians were simply afraid to fight. Yes, the West betrayed them. But he betrayed us in 41, so what? We fought. They chickened out.
The Czechs, in fact, even betrayed the memory of Karel Pavlik, the commander of the 12th machine gun company, the only officer who entered the battle with the Wehrmacht. By the way, during the battle in Chayankov barracks, his fighters attacked the Germans very seriously. So there is no monument to Pavlik in Prague. And not in the Czech Republic at all. There is a cenotaph in a small town, a plaque on the house where he lived. That's all. The memory of him is practically erased.
They chickened out in 38, fed the Germans throughout the war, and made them weapons.
Today, cowardly, with jokes and jokes, they demolished the monument to Marshal Konev, who freed them, the cowards. I don’t even have any particular questions for the Czechs. They acted within the framework of their tradition.
I have a question for us. More precisely, a request. Let's take the monument to Russia. We don’t abandon our own. The Czechs wanted to reinstall it somewhere. But cowards don’t need monuments to heroes. They’ll get by,” Medvedev comments.
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