As for suggestions made in Estonia to demolish or move the monument to Soviet liberators in Tallinn Ilves said: "Let me ask a question in return - is it a monument to the victorious Red Army, a monument to the fallen victors or a gravestone for the dead?"
"I respect the commemoration of those who died in the war. However, glorifying foreign conquerors is alien to any people or culture, including the Russian people, of course," he said.
Ilves suggested giving a broader symbolic meaning to the monument.
"I support changing the meaning of the Bronze Soldier [as the monument is unofficially called in Estonia] that it would cover everything related to the Red Army - both the ouster of the Nazis and the sufferings that later befell the Estonian people," he said.
"Unfortunately, it happened so that for the Estonian people in 1944 one criminal regime was replaced by another," Ilves said.
Und noch etwas, das an der Bronzestatue stört: Der dargestellte Soldat erinnert an andere Heroenfiguren aus der Sowjetzeit, die alle unter Muskeldoping zu leiden scheinen. Zeitgemäß ist diese Art von Gedenken jedenfalls nicht. Siehe Foto oben: Monument für die Delegierten des I. Kongresses der Gewerkschaften Estlands, 1964.
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