Article: Stalin statue removed in Georgian home town
Writer: Margarita Antidze
Link
Let me first point out that as I am writing this post this article was only put up three hours ago. This article caught my eye because in History we learned about Soviet Russia, so the topic is still fresh in my mind.
I was almost surprised to find that the reaction was not outright elated. There were many who were upset about the secret removal of the famous dictator. I do think it was a little strange that the statue was removed in secret, I am also amazed that it was a secret, a statue that large...wow!
This all occurred in Gori, Stalin's hometown. I think that the citizens of Gori may have been upset about the removal because the statue put them on the map. The reporter commented on the fact that "Stalin is held up as a hero by supporters across the former Soviet Union who say the country could not have defeated Nazi Germany or become a superpower without his leadership."
Okay, sure, I can see why Georgians would want to keep the statue, but only if that was all he did. Stalin was responsible for so many deaths, why would anyone want a symbol of that in their town? Does this mean that his actions during WWII outweigh those deaths? For example, Richard Nixon was a pretty decent president but many people remember him for Watergate. Now, I know that Nixon wasn't responsible for deaths but you get the idea.
Wow, what a creepy statue. It stood in front of some official building, it was actually taller than the building itself. If you're going to put a statue of someone up I feel like it's just waiting to be knocked down.
On a positive note, they are putting up a monument for the victims in its place.
XDara
You know what's interesting? The same thing happened to me when I went to the Philippines. We went to my grandfather's home province and my parents were really surprised that the people there loved President Marcos. Because that's where he was from. Even though he sucked. (No statues as far as I remember, but they did have a bunch of little museum exhibits and his preserved body.)
ReplyDeleteAnd...the people talking about Stalin were saying a lot of the same as what we heard over there. Like, "Oh, but he did all this awesome reform. He created this whole infrastructure thing and cleaned everything up and helped the economy and was such a visionary, etc."
Yeah but he also declared martial law in the Philippines and gave curfews and kicked out all political opposition and did a bunch of other crap.
It's strange how people decide to perceive history in the way they do and the reasons they do so. :\