* When on May 9 2005 Russian President Vladimir Putin invited world presidents to Moscow, he did it officially in order to mark the victory over Fascism/Nazism. Many presidents came and pretended they all believed in all that staff. However, there was one thing that spoiled the holiday a bit : Adamkus and Rüütel did not come.
With all my respect for the Latvian president, the step by her Lithuanian and Estonian counterparts proved more effective. For Russia it is still important to keep up the myth that the Russian/Soviet people liberated Europe from Fascism.
Stalin was Stalin, but it was we who liberated the peoples. Russia is clutching at this myth like a drowning man at a straw as this is the last thing that keeps it in the international super league, of course, except for atomic bomb and natural gas. Those celebrating the Victory near the Bronze Monument are also clutching at this myth.
However, myth remains just a myth. Germany and the Soviet Union were not enemies, they were rivals. They felt malice not towards each other but towards European democracy. Germany and the Soviet Union were like criminals, while the West – an honest person. Tyranny has never given freedom to anybody.
That war was just a settlement of accounts with the key opponent, and the countless monuments we can see all over Central Europe today are just a reminder of its destruction. The best known and the most untrue monument is in Treptower Park in Berlin. Worship of such monuments as to symbols of happiness is beyond any criticism.
The Bronze Soldier symbolizes not the victory over Fascism but the victory of one criminal over another. Both just wanted to rule the world. Have they actually defeated Fascism after all ? No, we can see Nazi flags flying in Russia, not Estonia,” historian Lauri Vahtre says in Eesti Paevaleht.
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