Monument to Soviet tankers ( Czech Památník sovětských tankistů ; also known as “ Tank No. 23 ” ( Czech Tank číslo 23 ) and “ Smíchovský tank ” ( Czech Czech Smíchovský tank )) - a monument erected on July 29, 1945 in Prague ( Czechoslovakia ) in honor of the Soviet soldiers who came to the aid of the uprising Prague on May 9, 1945 at the end of World War II .
| Monument | |
| Monument to Soviet Tankers | |
|---|---|
| Památník sovětských tankistů | |
 Soviet tank IS-2 , which stood in Prague in 1948-1991 as a monument to the T-34 tank I. G. Goncharenko | |
| A country | Czech |
| Location | Stefanik Square (now Kinsky Square ), Prague |
| Build Date | 1945 year |
| Status | tank dismantled |
| condition | the monument is destroyed |
The first to enter Prague was the crew of the guard of lieutenant I. G. Goncharenko on tank T-34-85 No. 24, which was shot down, and Ivan Goncharenko himself was killed. On July 29, 1945, a monument to Soviet tankmen with another heavy tank IS-2 No. 23 was unveiled at Stefanik Square (now Kinsky ). According to legend, General D. D. Lelyushenko , who made the decision on the monument tank, criticized the wrecked T-34-85 tank, saying: "We will not give such junk to the Czechs." However, until the end of the 1980s, the official version claimed that the very “first” tank was actually exhibited in Prague.
After the “ velvet revolution ” in 1991, it was painted pink by the artist David Czerny , then dismantled from the pedestal and is now used as a symbol of the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops.
Content
- 1 Tank Monument
- 2 "Pink Tank"
- 3 notes
- 4 Literature
- 5 Links
Monument Tank
| External Images | |
|---|---|
| The crew of the tank (Goncharenko - second from the right). | |
| Padded T-34 No. 24 on the street of Prague. | |
| Damage to the T-34 No. 24. | |
On May 6, Soviet troops in the 3rd and 4th Guards Tank Armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front advanced towards Prague to assist townspeople who rebelled against German occupation [1] . At 3 a.m. on May 9, 1945, tanks of the 63rd Guards Chelyabinsk Tank Brigade , the advance detachment of the 4th Tank Army, broke into Prague. The first was the crew of the guard of lieutenant I. G. Goncharenko on tank T-34-85 No. 24 from a platoon of lieutenant L. E. Burakov. In the battle for Manesov, the tank’s tank was hit from a German self-propelled gun, Ivan Goncharenko was killed, the driver was wounded in the head, and the Czech conductor was torn off his leg. The remaining tanks of the assault group, breaking the enemy’s resistance, took possession of the Manes bridge, over which they reached the center of Prague.
July 29, 1945 in Prague ( Czechoslovakia ) on Stefanik Square (now Kinsky Square ) in the presence of Marshal I. S. Konev a monument was unveiled in honor of Soviet soldiers [2] [3] [4] [5] .
However, instead of the “thirty-four” guards of lieutenant I. G. Goncharenko, a heavy tank IS-2 , built in 1943 at the Kirov plant in Chelyabinsk , was loaded on a quadrangle pedestal made by captured Germans. According to legend, the decision to replace the T-34 with the IS-2 was made by General D. D. Lelyushenko, critical of the damaged T-34-85 tank I. G. Goncharenko, who said: “We won’t give such junk to the Czechs.” In addition, IS-2 was marked with number 23 (instead of real number 24) and a red star, which was not on the tank of I. G. Goncharenko. Until the end of the 1980s, the official version claimed that the very “first” tank [4] [5] was indeed exhibited in Prague. On the pedestal were installed brass tablets with the inscription: “Eternal glory to the heroes of the guard — the tankmen of General Lelyushenko, who fell in the struggle for freedom and independence of our great Soviet Motherland. May 9, 1945 ” [6] , and the square with the monument was renamed the Soviet Tankers Square [7] .
The official version was very widely distributed and promoted in Czechoslovak cinema, in books, as well as in memoirs of Soviet front-line soldiers. For example, in 1950 the Czechoslovak story for children “About the heart of the Ural lad” was published ( P. Kohout in the collection “O černém a bílém”). In the 1950s, the tank was also given the status of a national cultural monument [2] .
After the military suppression of the uprising in Hungary in 1956 , like other monument tanks in Czechoslovakia, all parts of the engine and gearbox were removed from the IS-2 tank so that the tank could not be used against the authorities [4] . And after the suppression of the Prague Spring of 1968 and the subsequent “period of Soviet occupation”, the Czechs no longer perceived it as a symbol of liberation from fascism [6] .
The Pink Tank
After the “ velvet revolution ”, the inhabitants of Prague learned that all these decades on the pedestal was not a lined T-34-85 guard of Lieutenant I. G. Goncharenko, but another tank (IS-2). Against the background of the talk that there was no moral reason to leave the Soviet tank on a pedestal, on the night of April 28, 1991 the future sculptor, and at that moment 23-year-old VŠUP student David Cerny painted his IS-2 pink with his friends, and installed a phallic finger symbol on the roof of the tank tower. According to the sculptor, he wanted to make fun of the symbolism of Soviet military monuments, which threatened the civilian population with force. As a result, Cerny was arrested for hooliganism, and after an official protest of the Russian government, the tank was returned to its original green color. However, soon, on May 12, 15 deputies of the Federal Assembly, who were not threatened with arrest due to parliamentary immunity, organized a community work day in protest against the artist’s arrest and repainted the tank again in pink. At the same time, a flowerbed in the shape of a five-pointed star was dismantled in front of the monument and an impromptu memorial was erected in memory of General A. A. Vlasov , whose armies attribute the liberation of Prague from May 5 to 8, 1945 [2] [6] .
In this form, the tank remained until the final liquidation of the monument on June 13, 1991. The monument tank was deprived of the status of a cultural monument and was first transferred to the Museum of Military History in Kbel and then to the military-technical museum in Leshan , where it is still located, still painted pink [4] [5] [6] .
The representatives of the Communist Party on the restoration of the monument, as well as the proposals of David Cerna regarding the installation of a pink tank in Prague as a permanent monument (under pressure from Prime Minister Milos Zeman and the Russian embassy of Prague rejected his project) were unsuccessful [6] . In June 2002, at the site of the former monument, a fountain was opened under the name "Hatch of Time" [2] .
At the initiative of David Cerny, a pink tank was exhibited for some time in the spa town of Lazne Bogdanec , where until the 1990s there were barracks of Soviet troops. In the summer of 2004, during the cultural event Cow Parade, a cow with a star and number 23 was installed on Kinsky Square, a parody of a monument to a Soviet tank. Then, on August 21, 2008, in protest against the occupation of 1968 and the Russian-Georgian war , an installation was installed on Kinsky Square - a pink-painted part of the T-34 tank base with two white stripes. On June 18, 2011, as part of Freedom Week, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia, the pink coating of the tank was updated and the phallic symbol was restored. The tank was delivered from the museum to the Smikhovsky pier in Prague, and then it was hoisted onto a pontoon in the middle of the Vltava River, where it was until July 1 [2] [6] .
| External Images | |
|---|---|
| Photo of the monument. August 1947. | |
| Honor guard at the memorial plaque. 1948. | |
| A plate on the monument with the names of dead soldiers | |
The same tank, repainted in pink.
Part of the pink tank base with two white stripes in 2008 on Kinsky Square.
Tank on the way to Prague to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia, June 20, 2011.
In modern Czechs, the reaction to using the “pink tank” as a symbol of Soviet-Czech relations is very different. Many of those who have survived or are well aware of the Second World War do not accept repainting the tank, but others see this as a symbol of turning the tank into “something completely safe,” believing that this pink tank is “a beautiful end to the Czech occupation” [8 ] . Also, some political and veteran organizations of Russia appealed to the Czech authorities with a request to restore the original color of the tank [6] [7] .
According to the director of the Military History Institute in Prague, Ales Knizek, “we do not intend to change this symbol of the pink tank. In the museum we have many other tanks that directly took part in the battles of World War II. The pink tank for us, as before, remains both a symbol of the end of the war and a symbol of the arrival of freedom in Czechoslovakia after 1989 ” [9] .
The image of the pink tank spread and was embodied in other cities of the Czech Republic and countries [10] .
Notes
- ↑ Victory operation of the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps . Ural State Military History Museum. Date of treatment December 8, 2014.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Yerzhan Karabek. 65 years later, the Kazakh liberator of Prague found out the truth about the “Pink Tank” . Radio Azattyk (May 19, 2010). Date of treatment November 8, 2014.
- ↑ The pink T-34 will sail through Prague . Foreign Media (June 22, 2011). Date of treatment November 8, 2014.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Libor Stejskal. Day of liberation or victory? What are we celebrating? . INOSMI / Aktualne.cz (May 9, 2012). Date of treatment November 14, 2014.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Oleg Vozdvizhentsev. The "pink" fate of a military tank . Prague Telegraph (June 2009). Date of treatment November 14, 2014.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Evgeny Lobkov. About the pink tank (inaccessible link) . The Oxygen Magazine (May 8, 2014). Date of treatment November 16, 2014. Archived November 29, 2014.
- ↑ 1 2 Russians want to return the green color to a pink tank in Prague . InosMI / Tyden (October 25, 2011). Date of treatment November 16, 2014.
- ↑ Anton Kaymakov, Loreta Vashkov. The contradictions of the pink tank . Radio Prague (July 8, 2011). Date of treatment November 14, 2014.
- ↑ Russians need a Pink Tank in Prague. The Czechs do not agree to repaint it . Translation / IHNED.cz (November 3, 2011). Date of treatment November 18, 2014.
- ↑ Efim Fishstein. The battle of the pink tanks . Radio Liberty (08.27.2013). Date of treatment April 22, 2015.
Literature
- Wright, Patrick (2001). Tank: The Progress of a Monstrous War Machine , p. 379. Viking Adult. ISBN 0-670-03070-8 .
- Zaloga, Steven J. , Jim Kinnear (1996 [2004]). T-34-85 Medium Tank 1944-94 , pp. 42–43. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-85532-535-7 .
- Zaloga, Steven J., Jim Kinnear, Andrey Aksenov & Aleksandr Koshchavtsev (1997). Soviet Tanks in Combat 1941-45: The T-28, T-34, T-34-85, and T-44 Medium Tanks , Hong Kong: Concord Publication. ISBN 962-361-615-5 .
Links
- Vladimir Vasiliev. The Pink Tank is the most famous monument to the Ural Volunteer Tank Corps . Regional newspaper (March 18, 2013). Date of treatment November 14, 2014.
- Oleg Vozdvizhentsev. The "pink" fate of a military tank . Prague Telegraph (June 2009). Date of treatment November 14, 2014.
- Evgeny Lobkov. About the pink tank (inaccessible link) . The Oxygen Magazine (May 8, 2014). Date of treatment November 16, 2014. Archived November 29, 2014.