Apr 27
AleksUncategorized
-Giustino- Justin suggests to replace the monument of the Bronze Soldier with a more feminine monument, commemorating many many civil lives lost during the World War II, when all three Baltic States found themselves sandwiched between two mighty powers.
I can hear voices of Russian youth that such a monument would be considered re-writing history. As most Russians have been taught from a very young age the Red Army indeed freed Estonia from the Nazis.
Even though, “On September 20, 1944 Otto Tief government proclaimed Estonian state restored,” according to this source.
“Tief used the interregnum that was created by the withdrawal of German troops from and the advance of the Red Army toward Tallinn. His government never managed to take full control of the Estonian capital. Military units loyal to Tief clashed both with Germans and Russians. On September 22, 1944 Red Army took Tallinn under its control. Members of Tief government fled Tallinn.”
That is so different from Latvia where no government was formed in the immediate period following the Nazi withdrawal.
For Russians, and especially for Russian youth, it ought to be important to learn the history of World War II from a point of view of other countries.
Boris Makarenko, the first deputy director of the Center for Political Technology, in the English-version of Kommersant makes several excellent points regarding history.
For a while, I’ve been reading Latvian newspaper archives from those 1940 events, when Soviet tanks rushed through Latvia’s eastern border to “preserve peace” that July morning. Following arrival of the Red Army, changes in the society took places swiftly. Already a couple of weeks following the invasion, the new pro-Moscow minister of education announced that Russian would be taught in all schools. And I’m quite certain the same thing happened in Estonia.
Unlike other European countries, the Baltic States were swallowed into the family of nations known as Soviet Union without asking, they were overcome by Russian-speaking immigrants who exemplified the imperialist behavior. They didn’t bother to learn a national language or understand the culture. They perceived the natives as pygmies, a primitive culture that cannot compare to the richness and mysterious Russian soul.
Riots in Eastern Estonia and Tallinn are only an example of this attitude.
The whole debate in many forums revolves around ethnic superiority. Russians say Estonians suffer from a complex of inferiority therefore they need to remove the damned statue to stick it to the Big Guy Nextdoor. For Estonians, it’s a symbol of Soviet occupation, of a loss of nationhood for 50 long years. It has to be gone.
Whether removing the monument was a good thing — I don’t know. Only time will tell. Removing or destroying the artifacts of the Soviet occupation, 16 years following the country’s independence seems like a moot point. I just don’t think any monument is going to be built in its place.
Apr 27
AleksUncategorized
The events of the last two days in Estonia are being watched by nationalist organizations in Latvia. On both sides.
We can’t pass up the opportunity to blame Russians (or Estonians/Latvians, depending on which side of the fence you might find yourself.
The site of “national conservative” uberpatriotic party Visu Latvijai posted several reports in English and Latvia, including this one:
Russians have started to destroy our monuments- they covered the statue of A.H.Tammsaare with paint and wrote a thing about our prime minister Ansip there.
And things arent getting out of control only in Tallinn. Also in Jõhvi-russians also burned a statue there. And I hear that some windows have been broken in Pärnu already.
But when most of the police is in Tallinn..how can we control the other cities?
Shtab to Protect Russian Schools, which recently transformed itself into an organization with a much wider “pro-Russian” angle, announced the protest outside the Estonian embassy and forum posters aren’t exactly understanding of the actions of “fascist” Estonia.
While it impacts Latvia, I don’t see any monuments in Riga, for example, that would need to be moved. Any notion that the Victory Monument across the Daugava river ought to be demolished is a bunch of nonsense. Besides, that monument, built in 1985, doesn’t have any remains of any soldiers.
Apr 27
AleksUncategorized
Where we are now…
* In a phone interview to Postimees, Estonia’s Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said violence is inexcusable (link in Russian). At the same time, he said he didn’t anticipate such turn of events.
* Postimees newspaper also has a photo gallery.
* Tallinn’s jails are full. More than -300- 600 people have been detained.
* Some rioting also took place in Eastern Estonia in Jõhvi and Kohtla-Järve, both are predominantly Russian towns.
* Russian-language and Estonian-language versions of the site Delfi suspended commentson their sites to “preserve civil peace“.
* Topix.net’s forum has a few interesting posts.
photo taken from postimees.ee
Apr 27
AleksUncategorized
The events in Tallinn are not so much about history. It’s not about the dead soldiers. It’s not about Estonia’s occupation, even.
It’s about symbolism.
It’s impossible not to comment the removal of the Red Army monument from downtown Tallinn. One can certainly understand why the Estonian government made the decision to move forward the time of the removal of the controversial monument of the Bronze Soldier at a 3 a.m. meeting Friday morning.
Controversy surrounding the monument is nothing new in post Soviet Estonia. It was built in 1947 as a symbol for what Russians still call Estonian liberation from the Nazi occupation. Some Estonians, though, believe this monument is a symbol of Soviet occupation. They allege that the Red Army soldiers died not fighting the Nazis, but rather fighting those who supported a new Estonian government formed during a few days following the Nazi withdrawal.
Last night, “some 1,500 people, mostly local Russians, some of them mobilized by the Nochnoy Dozor (Night Watch) red-brown group, had gathered around the Bronze Soldier in the pre-midnight hours. Some tried unsuccessfully to break through police lines, while most of them rampaged on shopping and residential streets downtown. The rioting received a second wind after the looting of liquor from bars on Tatari Street. Scores were injured, many of them by glass from vandalized shops. One death was reported in a stabbing incident. Thirteen policemen received injuries requiring hospitalization. Some 300 rioters were arrested throughout the night.”
Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves called rioters “criminals.
“All this had nothing to do with the inviolability of graves or keeping alive the memory of men fallen in World War II,” Ilves said.
And he is right. Nor do I think the Parliament’s decision to remove the monument and the remains of the fallen soldiers is an attempt to preserve history. It’s a symbolic gesture that really doesn’t accomplish anything 16 years since Estonia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.
Russian official reaction was not as swift as one would have expected. Foreign Minister Igor Lavrov answering a question from the media in Oslo, said, “I believe that all this is disgusting. Although I have not seen any footage yet, I have heard what is happening there. There can be no justification for this blasphemy. It will have serious consequences for our relations with Estonia. It cannot but affect relations with the EU and NATO eventually – organizations which have admitted into their fold a country grossly violating the values on which the European Union and indeed European culture and democracy rest.”
I think Lavrov finds the removal of the monument disgusting, rather than a civil disorder on the streets of downtown Tallinn.
Latvian embassy in Tallinn is located near the epicenter of the events. In a press release Friday, Latvia’s Foreign Ministry avoided to opine on the Estonian government’s decision to remove the monument, but condemned the violence.
“In a democratic country, any group of society which disagrees with government decisions is free to express its own opinion, however, it must not violate the law. Acts of vandalism which pose a threat to the life and health of people and damage and destroy property have nothing in common with the democratic forms of protest.”
“The acts of vandalism in Tallinn left one diplomatic representative of the Latvian Embassy injured, and damage was also done to the embassy building. The Foreign Ministry considers that the organizers and perpetrators of said campaigns must be held liable.”
At the Estonian embassy in Riga, about three dozen (mostly Russian) people gathered to protest the removal of the monument.
Apr 25
AleksUncategorized
The number of signatures collected for the referendum reaches more than 110,000 out of approximately 150,000 signatures needed to hold a referendum on two national security laws. Some experts suggest that it will not be a referendum on those laws, but rather a referendum on the government policies in general. The last day to sign up is May 2.
Apr 18
AleksUncategorized
I often write about some Brits coming over to Latvia to wreck a havoc, but in this piece of news, I’d be interested to find out whether it was related to the victim being a Latvian, or did he just happen to be a Latvian who was killed.
From Leeds Today News:
DETECTIVES probing the murder of a supermarket worker in Leeds today issued the descriptions of two men and two women sought in connection with the attack.
Det Supt Paul Taylor of the West Yorkshire Homicide and Major Enquiry team was speaking hours after 23-year-old Artjoms Andrejevs died in Leeds Infirmary after being attacked at the Total garage on Tong Road, Wortley, Leeds, at 2am on Sunday.
The senior dectective appealed for help in finding two white men, both aged in their late teens or early 20s who were dressed in casual clothes, probably jeans.
They were in the company of two white women of a simlar age.
One of these women had long dark hair tied up at the back and wore a white T-shirt top with a design hole at the back.
The four people are believed to have been using a white Renault Megane car which has been seized by police since the attack on Mr Andrejevs.
Mr Andrejevs brother had been attempting to get an emergency flight from Latvia to reach the Leeds bedside of his dying bother but was unable to reach England before he passed away. He is now expected to arrive on Friday.
Speaking at the garage where Mr Andrejevs was attacked, Det Supt Taylor said: “This was a young man in the right place at the right time who did nothing wrong whatsoever.
“Sadly he met the wrong people and it is these people we now need to catch urgently. He was a hard working young man who came to this country to make a better life, he was in full time employment and his murder is an absolute tragedy.”
Apr 18
AleksUncategorized
More than 60,000 Latvians signed a petition to hold a national referendum, Central Election Commission said Wednesday.
In the first two weeks of a signature drive, 60,683 people signed up to repeal one law, while 60,688 people signed to repeal another law. Both pieces of legislation are related to the country’s national security.
The government began a signature drive to hold a national referendum on two national security laws that the President declined to sign into force, citing possible influence of oligarchs on the nation’s national security.
The number of signatures collected in the last 7 days days nearly doubled compared to the number of signatures collected in the first week of the drive. Overall, Latvians have until May 2 to put their signatures under a petition that calls for a national referendum on the controversial laws.
Apr 16
AleksUncategorized
The Latvian port town of Liepaja commemorated Monday the crew of a US aircraft shot down by Soviet forces in 1950 in an incident which sparked a bloody new phase in the Cold War. The deputy mayor of Liepaja, Gunars Ansins, and representatives of the US embassy in Latvia laid wreaths in memory of the ten-man crew of the US Navy Privateer reconnaissance plane, which was shot down by Soviet fighters on April 8, 1950.
Read more.
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