BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture Putin to honor Stalingrad

Personally, I feel this is a good idea. It honors those who fought, and sacrificed their lives, to the city of Stalingrad. The city suffered much hardship, but at the same time, was the first time the Soviet Army became victorious against the Nazi armies, eventually allowing the USSR to liberate not only conquered Soviet territory, but also all of Europe all the way to Berlin. Since Khrushchov, the cult of personality of Stalin had been destroyed, and everything related to him, all cities, etc., had been renamed. Since the end of the USSR, St Petersburg still retains the name Leningrad when referring to its "Hero City" status, but Volgograd was not allowed to use Stalingrad. Just as it is unthinkable to refer to St Petersburg during WWII without using the name Leningrad, the same should be true for Volgograd/Stalingrad.

(BTW - did you know the capital of Tadjikistan, now Dushanbe, was at one time named Stalinabad?)

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Putin orders Stalingrad tribute
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the name of the city of Stalingrad to be reinstated on a Moscow plaque commemorating the 1943 battle.
Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd in 1961, after the posthumous disgrace of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

Mr Putin said his aim was to celebrate the turning point of World War II.

He said the change was also designed to pay tribute to "the heroism of Stalingrad's defenders and to preserve the history of the Russian state".

Mr Putin asked the Moscow authorities to replace the "Volgograd" with "Stalingrad" on a plaque near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

It features in an alley of granite blocks containing capsules of soil from "Hero Cities" - Leningrad, Kiev, Volgograd, Odessa, Sevastopol, Minsk, Kerch, Novorissiisk, Tula and the Fortress of Brest.

The battle of Stalingrad raged from August 1942 to February 1943 and is thought to have claimed more lives than any other episode of World War II.

It was the first major Soviet victory of the war.

More than a million Soviet soldiers died defending the city.

Post-Soviet leaders have resisted pressure from nationalists and war veterans to restore the name of the city itself to Stalingrad - fearing it would signal a return to Stalinist dictatorship.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/3922121.stm

Published: 2004/07/23 22:59:09 GMT

� BBC MMIV

Visit:

http://www.vor.ru/English/Stalingrad/main.html

The year 2002 marked the 60th anniversary of the battle of Stalingrad, a crucial turning point in the Great Patriotic War fought by the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany and in World War Two at large. Continuing for 200 days and nights, this battle went down in history as the fiercest, bloodiest and longest military operation ever recorded. There, at the walls of Stalingrad, our homeland's destiny was at stake. And it was on the banks of the Volga, where a countdown for Germany's defeat began. Never before in the Second World War had the Germans sustained such a crushing defeat. The then American President Franklin Roosevelt said that the success of the Russians on the Volga had stopped the Nazi invasion and marked a turning point in the Allied Nations' war against the aggressors.

I read about the heroic struggle of the population
of Stalingrad, and that everybody worked together.
Threatened by two sides, the German enemy on the
other side and Stalin's NKVD in their back.
In Duch there is a beautiful childrensbook "Boris"
from Jaap ter Haar about Stalingrad.
Shostakovich 9th symphomy abou Stalingrad is
very impressing and remarable, it's a tribute to the
people of Stalingrad who stood firm digging their
defense walls of mud, while dying from hunger and cold. Like the Warsaw population they fought for their city.