The councilors are already clear: Marshal Koněv will lose his honorary citizenship in Prague
Soviet military leader Ivan Stepanovich Konev is to lose his honorary citizenship of the capital city of Prague. The councilors decided on Monday, May 9. Konev received the title in June 1945, when Russian troops were hailed as liberators.
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Monument to Marshal Konev. Illustrative photo.
| Photo: Facebook Ondřej Kolář Mayor of Prague 6
“Over time, facts have come to light that do not indicate that Konev is an honest man, so he cannot be an honest citizen. For example, after the end of the war, he decided to bomb Mladá Boleslav, where he murdered 150 civilians, including children, ”explained Mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Friends).
The proposal has yet to be approved by the representatives. According to Hřiba, the opposition will agree.
The leadership of Prague wants to take away the honorary citizenship of Marshal Konev
It is not the first historical figure to have the honorary citizenship granted before 1990 removed. For example, Klement Gottwald, Gustav Husak and Josif Vissarionovich Stalin lost him.
Two years ago, Prague 6 had his statue removed from Interbrigády Square in Bubeneč, and the renaming of Koněvova Street in Žižkov was also different.
Contradictory military leader
Marshal Konev commanded the troops of the Red Army on the Eastern Front, which liberated much of Eastern Europe from occupation by the German Nazis. As the first Allied army, it reached Prague in May 1945.
The marshal, whose troops played a key role in liberating Prague from Nazism, is behind a number of controversial acts that will not stand up to today’s moral considerations. Back in May 1945, the Soviet counterintelligence Smerš took away hundreds of Czechoslovak citizens of Russian nationality from Prague and the surrounding area, who went into exile after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917. Among them was, for example, a former tsarist officer and Czechoslovak general S. Vojcechovsky.
The man demands the return of the statue of Konev to the place, the court of his rejection
With the express consent of Konev, General AA Vlasov was also arrested, whose Russian Liberation Army joined the Prague insurgents for tactical reasons and contributed to their successful struggle.
The Soviet military is also responsible for the bloody suppression of the Hungarian anti-communist uprising in 1956, in which 2,000 to 5,000 civilians were killed. In 1961-62 he was commander of the Group of Soviet troops in Berlin during the crisis, which culminated in the construction of the so-called Berlin Wall. He held strong ideological positions, disagreeing, for example, with Nikita Khrushchev’s decision to criticize Stalin’s crimes and condemn the cult of his personality.