After the Estonian Monument Fiasco, Poland Prepares to Remove Soviet Monuments

BZM · #1 (**permalink**) 05-03-2007, 07:57 AM

Due to removing a soviet monument and tomb of the unknown solder, Estonia has been besieged by riots, its Russian consulate and embassy closed due to protests, its foreign minster's body guards had to fend off protesters, its websites shut down by hackers using denial of service attacks, and now Russia is shutting down the rail lines for repair which is stopping the flow of oil through Estonia. So this is certainly a crazy week for Russian Estonian relations.

To stay on top of monument removal and its aftereffects, check all Russian blog posts related to the Bronze Soldier.

And now, according to this Russian BBC article, Poland is preparing a bill to remove all Soviet monuments (translated into English).

Quote:

Poland is preparing a bill to allow local authorities to remove from the streets Soviet monuments according to the Minister of Culture of Poland, Kazimierz Uyazdovsky. "Sights and all symbols of communist dictatorship should disappear as alien to the Polish tradition," said Minister of Culture, in an interview with the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita...
In his statement, Katynsky expressed support for the Estonian government, and said that Estonia, like Poland, for 50 years, been buffeted by the Soviet occupation and Soviet monuments were and are testimony enslavement and lies subtleties chauvinism."

Although, notably the Polish law proposed does exclude graves, which were moved in Estonia.

What timing! Since they don't have the same large Russian population inside Estonia, they likely won't see the same internal strife, but while the bear is already upset Poland might not want to unnecessarily throw stones.

BZM · #2 (**permalink**) 05-08-2007, 09:12 AM

Update: Poland has postponed its monument legislation and will consider changing some of the details. It will be reconsidered later since the approaching victory day celebrations and the current dispute with Estonia make for bad timing.