War in a figurative sense

The State Duma deputies, apparently, have nothing to do at all. From boredom, they began to dispose of monuments on the territory of a foreign state. Russian lawmakers threaten Estonia Kajami, if the Tallinn authorities dare to transfer the monument to the Warrior-Lover and rebuild the remains of Soviet soldiers from the mass grave. No less formidable Philippics are terminated by the Russian Foreign Ministry. “In Tallinn,” says his statement of November 10, “must give a report on what political consequences for relations with Russia will lead to the implementation of this blasphemous venture. We hope that the responsible Estonian politicians will manage to prevent the revenge plans of the Estonian National Radines.”

Passions are pumped out due to the fact that the Estonian parliament is adopted in the first reading the Law "On Protection of Military Structures", which allows the reburial of soldier's dust. If the law is adopted, in the spring of next year the exhumation of the remains will begin. The monument will not be demolished, although this is what it is said in the statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry; He will be transferred to another place - most likely to the same place as the remains, that is, in the cemetery.

The joint demarche of the executive and legislative branches of the government has no legal basis. It is no accident that the Foreign Ministry, where competent people work, avoids references to any international legal documents. Diplomats know that Estonia does not violate any conventions and agreements.

The fact of the transfer of the monument is itself - the event is quite ordinary. In the Soviet Union, the monuments were rearranged from place to place for various reasons and without them. The monument to Pushkin, hoisted in 1880 at the end of Tver Boulevard, was moved to the opposite side of Gorky Street in 1950, as Tverskaya was called then. Minin and Pozharsky was set up in 1818 in the middle of Red Square, and in 1931 the heroes of the current main state holiday were moved to the edge of the square, to Vasily Blessed. But not because they interfered with the military parades and demonstrations of the workers, as a teacher of history explained to me in childhood. And because these were, "representatives of the Boyar-Trade Union, concluded 318 years ago to strangle the peasant war."

An article in "Evening Moscow", where this quote was taken from, had an expressive title: "It is time to remove historical garbage from the squares." So thank you that these stranglers of the people were indeed not thrown into a landfill. And in 1952, in Moscow, on the occasion of the century from the day of the death of Gogol, the brilliant tragic statue of Andreev’s work was replaced by the mediocre product of Tomsk. And these are only the most famous examples, not to mention the demolition of monuments, which also distinguished both the Soviet Union and the new democratic Russia.

However, military burials are a special case. The graves of soldiers are subject to special care and protection. The legal status of such graves in the territory of another state is regulated by the first protocol to the Geneva Conventions to protect the victims of armed conflicts. The Supreme Soviet of the USSR ratified it on August 4, 1989. Article 34 of the protocol says that the burial places of the dead should enjoy respect and that interested states should "as soon as the circumstances and relations between the nasty parties allow" to conclude bilateral agreements to ensure the constant care and preservation of the graves, the access of relatives, as well as to promote the repatriation of the remains and the return of personal belongings buried at the request of their close relatives. To date, Russia has concluded such intergovernmental agreements with nine countries - Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Mongolia, Finland and Japan.

Bilateral agreements do not exclude by no means, but on the contrary, provide for the possibility of reburial of the remains and the transfer of monuments "in connection with the urgent state necessity." But the choice of a new site and the re -healing procedure are carried out by mutual agreement of the parties, while the costs are reimbursed by the party on whose initiative the decision was made.

Russia does not have such an agreement with Estonia. In this case, the protocol reads: “In the absence of agreements ... and if the country that is the homeland of the dead does not agree to ensure the content of such burial places at its own expense, the high contracting side, on the territory of which there are such places of burial, may offer to help the return of the remains of such dead to their homeland. When such a proposal is not accepted, a high contracting side after a year of five years from the date of such a proposal and the date of such a proposal and the date of such a proposal and After the proper notice of the country, which is the birthplace of the deceased, may take measures stipulated in its own legislation regarding cemeteries and graves. "

Estonians do not refuse to ensure the care and protection of the mass grave and do not require, as far as is known, fees for this. Perhaps, given the hypertrophied acute reaction of Moscow and based on the letter of the Geneva Conventions, Estonia should offer Russia to take the soldier's remains. But in Tallinn, of course, they understand the whole delicacy of the issue and the negative for themselves the moral consequences of such a step. In addition, the protocol does not require this in cases where there is no motive for the country's material interest, on whose territory there is a burial or memorial. And so, since there is no such motive, this country has the right to act with a burial in accordance with its own domestic legislation. It is this legislation that is currently considering the Estonian parliament.

The protocol does not interpret cases when there are no claims for reimbursement of expenses, and completely ignores the ethical side of the issue. But international legal documents cannot consider ethical and ideological conflicts. Since Russia is interested in maintaining the monument and burial in the same place, it should initiate negotiations on this subject and sign a bilateral agreement. But it acts differently: it uses the current situation as a preposition to pump tension. Ultimately, it was Moscow, inflating the scandal out of the blue, betraying its fallen heroes and ideals, in whose name they fought and died.

The desecration of monuments and cemeteries is a separate issue. This is by no means a specific property of Russian-Estonian relations. Grains and monuments were always desecrated - no wonder the word "vandalism" comes from the name of the ancient German tribe of vandals, which captured Rome in 455 and did not leave a stone on a stone from Roman idols. On the right of the people, to destroy the symbols of defeated power and that this is also an act of creativity, the French painter Gustav Courbet insisted, at the suggestion of which in 1871, during the days of the Paris Commune, fell a Vandom column. After the defeat of the Kommunarov, the column was put in place, and Kurb was obliged to pay the costs, but he died on the eve of the first payment day. In France, the burials of American and British soldiers who fell on the battlefields of both world wars are regularly defiled. Three and a half years ago, on the occasion of the war in Iraq, among the inscriptions on grave slabs, the following appeared: Deterrez vos Dechets, ILS Souillent Notre Sol ("Dig your garbage - it pollutes our soil"), Rosbifs Go Home! ("Rostbifs, out of here!"; Les Rosbifs - a contemptuous nickname of the British in France, analogue of The Frogs - "Frogsathers" - in England), "Saddam will win and arrange bloodletics." It was not without a swastika with a mocking postscript "The death of the Yankee!".

In May of this year, the cemetery of Soviet soldiers in Leipzig was desecrated. Moscow reacted quite adequately: the presentation of the German embassy was made, the FERG Foreign Ministry apologized. The Duma of any statements “On the manifestation of neo -Nazi and revenge sentiments”, which she is going to make in connection with Estonia, in the case of Germany, seemed to not accept.

In such cases, the advantage of the people is determined not by the presence of evil scrains in the society, but by the reaction of this society and the measures that are taken by the authorities. After the last incident, the Tallinn authorities established a round -the -clock police post in a bronze soldier, acts of vandalism have not been repeated since then.

On the occasion of the next Russian-Estonian aggravation, a long-standing story is recalled about how the Soviet Union tried not to prevent demolition, but by the construction of a monument in Washington. We are talking about the monument to Taras Shevchenko, created for donations collected by the Ukrainian community of the United States. Understanding that it was not official to object to the perpetuation of the memory of the Ukrainian classic against the perpetuation of the memory of the Ukrainian classic, in Moscow they decided to mobilize the masters of culture. Representatives of the creative intelligentsia of Soviet Ukraine published an open letter in which “attempts by some people were branded to use it (Shevchenko. - V.A.) a bright name for their dirty political purposes ... to waste labor pennies earned on a monument to Ukrainians living in the United States to promote the Ukrainian people and the Soviet Union as a whole.”

What was outraged by the project of the monument to the Ukrainian community? One single: on the base of the monument it was supposed to place a quote glorifying the first president of the United States:

...If

MISTOMEND VOSHIINGTON

With the new righteous law?

And I’m still striking!

These are "dirty political goals" against which nomenclature writers protested. In the campaign against the monument, the American liberal community took part. Nevertheless, in June 1964, the monument was solemnly opened in the very center of the US capital by former President Dwight Eisenhower. And today, as “Our Father”, is repeated by a quote from Shevchenko in Kyiv by every senior American visitor.