Monument Wars Part Infinity

Guest Post by Vincent Post, originally Posted at http://vinpost.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/monument-wars-part-infinity/ on March 27, 2014
For many Czechs, Russia’s Crimean land-grab is strongly reminiscent of the two pivotal times in their own 20th century history during which Czechoslovakian territorial integrity was trampled upon. Although defacing Soviet era monuments (the ones that have not been removed) is fairly common practice in the Czech Republic, the defacers have been extra active this year. And they’ve gotten something fresh and new to have a go at: apparently an organization of Russian veterans from the Afghan war, in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the start of that war, has erected a monument in Prague’s Olšany cemetery honoring ‘Russian Internationalists’ – soldiers that offered ‘brotherly help’ in countries neighboring the Soviet Union.

As could have been expected, this gesture was not widely appreciated, especially not against the backdrop of the invasion of Crimea. So first someone made the monument into a diorama, with little toy tanks and toy soldiers. Someone also spray painted ‘CZ’ on the monument.

Image(c) Lidové Noviny. See how the little soldiers were painted red?

Only a few days later, a new addition was made to the monument when a person or persons unknown spray painted ‘Jan Palach’ on the monument, adding a cross (link to LN story).

Image(c) Lidové Noviny. Note how the CH in Palach is written on one line – not because they ran out of space but because CH is its own letter in the Czech alfabet (it comes between H and I).

Apparently the officials that authorized this monuments only looked at the ‘technical parameters’ of the monument and not at the text which refers to the soldiers as ‘peacemakers’ (in Russian, the Czech on the sign is more neutral about the soldiers). The second Lidové Noviny article notes that although official Russian sources claim 12 ‘peacemakers’ died during the 1968 invasion at the hands of ‘counterrevolutionaries’, domestic historians dispute this…