In general, the Georgian authorities are not original in this endeavor. The Baltic republics and some Eastern European countries which were part of the former socialist camp adopted lustration laws in relation to them (in ancient Rome, this term denoted a procedure of sacrifice for the sake of purification, and in the past century a legislative restriction on rights of certain categories of people was so named). As is the case for Rome, the communist symbols are now banned in Georgia - the five-point star, hammer and sickle, other symbols of the Soviet Union.
Based on the provisions of this charter, now Georgian veterans will not be able to go out with Soviet orders and medals. But what wrong have they done to Georgia - the people, who saved not only our nations but the entire world from the fascist plague? Do those who earned these decorations by blood, now have no right to wear them?
The Georgian president has a short memory. Perhaps it is more serious diagnosis - amnesia. Historical. Although, if what the omniscient Wikipedia is said is true, Mr. Saakashvili’s mother is professor of history. However, there was also his grandfather, who worked for KGB that could, as you know, in accordance with instructions from above, from time to time rewrite history. No one knows which one of the relatives had a decisive impact on Mishiko, but it is known for certain that he now claims: “The Georgians participated not in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, but in World War II of humanity against Nazism.”
Let us recall Mr. President that in the years of that nationwide resistance movement against fascist aggression, seven hundred thousand Georgians fought on the fronts. They took part in all battles of that war, fought in partisan groups, in people’s volunteer corps. More than 300,000 of his countrymen were killed and 93 residents of Georgia were honoured with the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Everybody (possibly except for the non-achiever Saakashvili) is aware from history textbooks that Georgian junior sergeant Kantaria with Russian sergeant Yegorov hoisted the red flag over the Reichstag.
So for which homeland were Georgians ready to give their life, and did it during the war - only for their birthplace or for our common country at that time? The question seems to be rhetorical, but now Georgian historians write the following: “The political leadership of the Soviet Union announced this war to be patriotic. The war was recognized patriotic not only for the Russian people, but also for all nations conquered by the Soviet Russia and forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, including Georgia. The majority of people which were educated in the spirit of devotion to communist ideals took the war as a patriotic one... But another part of the Georgian people was fully aware that in this case, Georgia is a conquered and dependent country; that it was
Russia that had deprived Georgians of independent statehood and Georgia was forcibly integrated into the Soviet Union. And now it had to fight on behalf of the Soviet empire which had conquered it, to sacrifice life for it, giving its intellectual and material resources to the imposed war. For this part of the Georgian people, the war, of course, could not be patriotic.”
Memory, as well as history, is selective. Yet there is no point to fit it to someone else’s geo-political or nationalistic patterns and introduce historical debates in politics by giving up sacred things. And for the peoples of the former ‘Soviet empire’ this sacred thing was and remains unparalleled feat of arms of our peoples, the admiration for which almost on a genetic level is passed down from generation to generation.
It’s no secret that all the pomposity of the Freedom Charter is directed against today’s Russia, which, according to the document initiators, should be fully responsible for the crimes of the former communist leadership. But here’s the question: becoming the legal successor of the Soviet empire, taking over its liabilities and debts, has the new Russia become a legal successor of this ‘inheritance’ too? And by the way, why then not to impose a responsibility on the other former Soviet states, who also brought up multiple butchers of that period? The same Stalin or Beria…
This question is, of course, difficult and ambiguous. It is very unfortunate that in the years of perestroika, when we ourselves discovered the shocking, murderous facts of the recent past, and with the advent of a new era, the country’s leaders have not considered worthy to dot all the ‘i’s. They seem to have recognized and condemned Stalin’s regime repressions, including those during the war, but did not repent, believing that these crimes are not related to them and in general to the current generation of Russians. Perhaps, there is some logic in such a position, but was not it worth then to clearly and unambiguously clarify it to foreign partners, so that they no longer insist on our repentance? Modern Germans, Austrians, Italians are not required the same, after all.
However, this seemingly quite a natural point of view does not keep within the anti-Russian historical concept of the current Georgian president. According to him, it is necessary to discredit and destroy all that was sacred before 1991. That’s why several years ago in Kutaisi on Saakashvili’s order the monument to Georgians who died in World War II was brutally blown up. The authorities explained: no money for the maintenance of the monument. At the same time there were funds for the erection last year of a new one, on which the names of three and a half thousand Georgians were engraved: junkers who died in 1918 fighting against the Red Army, leaders of the uprising against Soviet rule in 1924, soldiers killed in South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the early 90’s and during the war in 2008.
Unfortunately, this historical amnesia is characteristic not only of the Georgian president. There the Uzbek leader believes that his country had not been attacked by anybody, therefore the war was not patriotic, but the Second World War and Uzbek soldiers took part just in it. Well, it is impossible to ask those who were killed in battle what they lost their lives for. Except that one Uzbek soldier wrote a letter to his mother from Leningrad, saying: “When the Fascist bandit stepped on our Soviet land, I felt the Ferghana Valley trembling...”
...Every time I visit Budapest, I come here to Mount Gellert. Below is the blue Danube, slow and dazzling on a sunny day. On the opposite side, there are solemn radiating Pest avenues. And, Erzsebet Bridge seems to be hung in the air, named after the beloved Queen of Hungary, Sisi. And from behind is a breathtaking white monument of Freedom: a woman, holding an olive branch.
It’s not so long ago that a bronze statue of a Soviet soldier stood at the foot of it, and it was called differently - the Liberation Monument. In commemoration of 180 thousand Soviet soldiers who died in that country, including those marines who by means of mountaineering equipment climbed the steep slopes of Gellert and in hand-to-hand fight knocked SS-men out.
Paronymous words, but how different they are in essence. There is no doubt that Hungary like other countries of the Socialist Community won real freedom only after the totalitarian regime collapsed, and it managed to escape from the iron embrace of the ‘big brother’. But what’s that got to do with liberation from fascism? And what wrong has the bronze soldier done to Hungarians, that in the early 90’s it was moved to the Monument Park - similar to our sculptural dump in the CHA?
All over Europe there is a struggle, seemingly with the symbols of the hated era, but indeed with the memory of the most terrible of wars in human history. In the same Budapest a monument to parliamentary Ostapenko and Steinmetz shot by Germans, was taken down, in Prague the T-34 was removed from the pedestal and painted in pink, in Riga the Victory Monument was nearly blown up. Even the famous Bulgarian ‘Alyosha’ was encroached, though it was defended after all. But in Tallinn it is not the case.
Germans, against which officers and soldiers from the 15 Soviet republics fought, by the way, show therein a good example to some European neighbors. Even before the unification of Germany, they with truly thoroughness took care of the graves of our soldiers, prisoners of war, Ostarbeiters. And for the 65th anniversary of Victory, many monuments were restored, including the most famous - the Liberator-Soldier in Treptow Park.
It is believed that history puts everything in its place. It is hoped that the next generation of European politicians will be able to understand after all the value of deeds committed by Soviet soldiers during the last war. As well as new Georgian leaders who will come to power. And Georgian veterans will be able to fearlessly wear military decorations they have earned…
