This Thursday, February 2, the Russian city of Volgograd, renamed by its Soviet name of Stalingrad the time of the commemorations, as every year, celebrates the 80th anniversary of the end of the battle of the same name and the victory over Nazi Germany. Vladimir Putin is expected on site. This Wednesday, a bust of Stalin was inaugurated.
From our special correspondent in Volgograd,
On the facade of the museum, a tribute to the heroism and sacrifice of the soldiers of this long and violent battle. Stalingrad is a million deaths on the Soviet side and a turning point in the Second World War which marked the retreat of the Nazi troops. Huge signs proclaim “ Stalingrad, home of victory “. In the background, a few sections of destroyed buildings, the preserved remains of a city in ruins after the victory.
This Wednesday, on the forecourt, at the foot of period armor and planes, along the banks of a Volga whitened by frost, there were several hundred at midday. A handful of veterans, their families, a patriotic youth movement. Three busts were inaugurated: those of two military leaders famous for their role in the mythical battle, Gueorgui Joukov and Alexandre Vasilievski, but also that of Joseph Stalin.
It is an important event in Russia, so rare are the monuments to his glory, which disappeared in the 1950s after the death of the leader and the first, timid criticisms of the purges, the gulags and the cult of personality.
The tutelary figure of Stalin at the time of the offensive in Ukraine
Certain statues had indeed reappeared in the 1990s, sometimes in the headquarters of the Communist parties in small towns, but in any case, never in such a solemn setting with speeches by elected officials, music on the loudspeaker and deposits of bouquets red carnations at the foot of the statues. In front of the new bust of the former leader of the USSR, Alexander Lozhkin, chairman of the regional Duma and the regional organization of veterans, had these words: ” Now in our city there is a monument to Supreme Commander Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. Today, in this era of special military operations, we probably understand like never before how difficult it is to be a combat operations leader, and we understand today that he has done his job with brilliantly and that the enemy has been defeated “.
The Battle of Stalingrad (1942-1943) indeed changed the course of the conflict in the Soviet Union, demoralized until then by several crushing defeats. And it is in this heritage that the power wants to register the offensive against Ukraine.
At 98, Evgeni Rogov is one of the last veterans still alive, he even overcame the Covid three years ago. Enlisted at 17, 30 years of service as a soldier, on this 80th birthday, it is at home a parade of tributes and interview requests. And even if the girl has to repeat the questions very loudly in her ear, her ideas remain clear and assertive. He certainly adheres to the narrative at work in Russia. ” Look at this conflict in Ukraine today. They remember well the faith of Bandera’s troops in the nationalist theories of the latter, which was in agreement with the theories of the Germans at the time. And now they are trying to hurt us again. We are educating our young people by telling them to keep firmly the borders of our homeland. And that if necessary, we will go to Berlin again “.
” We can do it again “. This slogan appeared in the Russian public space about ten years ago. This sentence, say historians, was written by a Soviet soldier on the Reichstag after it was captured in 1945 by soldiers of the Stalingrad battalion. A sentence emblematic of patriots and nationalists as today is also the “Z” for the conflict in Ukraine.
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