Passions around “Red Past” Run High

63 years have passed since the Second World War was over but passions around our common history do not cool down. In Baltic countries particularly they flared up anew. The day before Estonian parliament gave the bill about the ban on use of Soviet and Nazi symbols in public places its first reading. It may well be that it wouldn’t have drawn such wide social response, if the nearest neighbour of Estonia hadn’t been Lithuania. The parliament of this republic has ratified the amendments to Gatherings Act which prohibit to use the symbols of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in public places. The society of postsoviet area is agitated by the sign of equality between Soviet and Nazi symbols. Here it should be noted that not only flags and anthems of the USSR and Nazi Germany, swastika, but also the images of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were put on the blacklist of Lithuanian legislators.

63 years have passed since the Second World War was over but passions around our common history do not cool down. In Baltic countries particularly they flared up anew. The day before Estonian parliament gave the bill about the ban on use of Soviet and Nazi symbols in public places its first reading. It may well be that it wouldn’t have drawn such wide social response, if the nearest neighbour of Estonia hadn’t been Lithuania. The parliament of this republic has ratified the amendments to Gatherings Act which prohibit to use the symbols of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in public places. The society of postsoviet area is agitated by the sign of equality between Soviet and Nazi symbols. Here it should be noted that not only flags and anthems of the USSR and Nazi Germany, swastika, but also the images of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were put on the blacklist of Lithuanian legislators.

Now, “at the meetings in Lithuania it is banned to use Nazi and communist symbols which can be interpreted as propaganda of Nazi and communist regimes,” RIA “Novosti” quotes press service of the parliament. For instance, one cannot demonstrate flags and emblems, badges and uniform of Germany, the USSR and Lithuanian SSR at public meetings. Yet the plot thickens. Together with swastika, hammer, sickle and red star are under the ban as well. It is one more blow on those few war veterans living in Lithuania: now it is doubtful whether they can go out wearing orders and medals. A feather in one's cap has suddenly turned into a banned object.

The anthems of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union as well as the images of German National Socialist Working Party’s and USSR Communist Party’s personalities are also forbidden. Actually, it turns out that at present besides the images of Gorbachev and Yeltsin the photos of Gediminas Kirkilas, Head of Cabinet Council (in his day he was the instructor in Propaganda and Agitation Department at the Central Committee of Lithuanian Communist Party), and Algirdas Brazauskas, Ex-Prime Minister (ex-secretary of the central Committee of Lithuanian Communist Party and ex-member of USSR Supreme Soviet) have fallen in Lithuanian esteem.

Commenting upon the decision of Lithuanian parliament, Rein Lang, Minister of Justice of Estonia, assured that in the nearest future Estonian authorities do not intend to pass the laws which would ban to hold public meetings using Nazi or Soviet symbols, reports Lenta.ru. At the same time he noted that the issue of Nazi and Soviet symbols’ prohibition still deserves consideration. Though, he supposes that it would be rather difficult to enforce such a law.