The destruction of Soviet monuments has a long tradition. It intensified after the invasion of Ukraine
The plinth of the statue of a Red Army soldier in Litoměřice was currently resonating in the media repainted on the washing machine, by which he wanted to draw attention to the theft of white equipment by Russian soldiers in Ukraine. Most recently, the trial for the former pollution of the Red Army monument with dog excrement, with which someone anointed it in Žatec. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the eight-month-long war, attacks against symbols associated with contemporary Russia have increased.
Someone damaged a statue of a Red Army soldier in Litoměřice. The pedestal is shaped like a washing machine
“People who destroy monuments seem to have a sense of some kind of satisfaction. Maybe they see it as revenge against Russia. Although they are monuments to Red Army soldiers, it is questionable whether they should have been built at that time. Although a lot of soldiers really did liberate, a lot of people at that time already counted on both material and power advantages, and the goal was to bring Czechoslovakia under the sphere of Soviet influence,” said Jiří Smutný from the Club of Friends of Military History in Terezín.
An expression of human frustration
He recalled the statue of a Red Army woman in Terezín, which is undamaged and there are no plans to relocate it. “It is a manifestation of human frustration and the current situation. The ruler of Russia turned out to be a war criminal. Even the Russians themselves carry out sabotage on military equipment, just so they don’t have to go to war. It is difficult to condemn the whole country as a whole,” added Smutný.
Karel the Fourteenth from Ústí nad Labem sees it similarly. “I think that damaging monuments is undignified. I don’t like contemporary Russia, but nothing would happen to places of worship,” said the Fourteenth, adding that being with contemporary Russia behaves barbarically, so the credit for the victory in World War II cannot be denied to him.
Someone vandalized the Red Army statue in Přerov. He sprayed them with the Russian symbol of war
Statues and monuments Soviet symbolism, which is associated with present-day Russia as a successor state, there are quite a few in the Ústí Region. In Jiráské sady in Terezín there is a monument to a Red Army soldier, in Ústí nad Labem there is a large memorial in Městské sady, where you can see in detail a Spagin submachine gun and a hand grenade held in the hand.
The dog feces-polluted monument in Louny is even included in the catalog of the National Institute of Monuments. It has been subject to state monument protection since May 3, 1958. There is even an equestrian statue of a Red Army woman in Keblice in Litoměřice. There are not many equestrian statues in our country, the most famous is St. Wenceslas in the upper part of Wenceslas Square, and the three-meter equestrian statue from World War II is only in Keblice. It comes from 1960 and its authors were Karel and Miroslav Zentner.
Canceled monument protection
A monumental monument to the Red Army by the sculptors Bradáček, Kyselka and Solarík from 1955 stands in the Municipal Gardens in Ústí.
The base is a central statue of a Red Army woman on a prismatic plinth, accompanied by two lateral figural reliefs. In the foreground is a large mass grave hiding urns with the ashes of Red Army soldiers. There is no damage to the monument, so it is no wonder that it is tempting to take a photo.
“I will not tell you anything about the destruction of monuments, one does not know what to believe. The information is contradictory and from different sides, and I’m not rooting for anyone,” replied the father, who introduced himself as Mr. Novák, to Deník’s question. On Wednesday, October 26, he took pictures of his sons right in front of the monument, the sandstone of which shone brightly thanks to the bright sun. “I just want to show them what soldiers look like. We were talking about the war,” she explained her presence at the monument.
Occupiers, go home. The people of Znojmo covered the statue of a Red Army soldier in the colors of Ukraine
The Ústí work was under monument protection from May 3, 1958 to January 19, 1996. “It is no longer under monument protection,” says the website of the National Monuments Institute. While this monument was created in the 1950s, the statue made famous by the Litoměřice “washing machine” was erected only 30 years after the war. The people of Litoměřice have known it since 1975, although in 2011 it was actually considered to remove it.