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GEORGIA DIVIDED OVER STALIN 'LOCAL HERO' STATUS IN GORI
4 March 2013 Last updated at 19:01 ET
By Bethany Bell BBC News, Gori, Georgia
Gori's giant statue of Stalin was removed in 2010 - but now it is
to reappear On the 60th anniversary of the death of Soviet supreme
ruler Joseph Stalin there is still controversy over how to view his
legacy in his homeland Georgia.
Millions died when Stalin imposed iron discipline and state terror
to root out "enemies of the people" and build a communist state.
But in the town of Gori, where he was born, the city council recently
decided to re-erect a huge statue of Stalin, which the pro-Western
government of President Mikheil Saakashvili took down almost three
years ago. It is a sign, historians say, that the country needs to
confront its Soviet past.
Gori's main tourist attraction is its museum to Stalin. The ornate
building, with its collection of heroic photographs and Stalin's
death mask, appears frozen in time - a Soviet shrine to the dictator,
almost untouched since the museum was built in 1957.
But Olga Tochishvili, who has worked as a guide here since the Soviet
era, says attitudes towards Stalin are changing.
"In Georgia, most of the old generation like Stalin. They think he
was a great statesman, with his small mistakes. Young people don't
like Stalin, of course. Our young people are not interested in history
and they don't like Stalin."
Hero or villain?
The Gori museum highlights the Soviet-era Stalin personality cult
But it is not just attitudes. Gori's cityscape has changed as well.
The main boulevard, Stalin Street, used to be dominated by the huge
statue of the dictator. But it was removed in 2010 by Mr Saakashvili's
westernising government - a decision that upset many people in Gori.
Nikoloz Kapanadze, who earns tips by helping cars to find parking
places in Stalin Street, told me the statue should be returned.
"Everybody wants that, not only me, but the whole of Gori, the whole
of Georgia wants the monument to be installed where it was before. I
am 65 and I've only heard good things about him throughout my life."
A few weeks ago the city council allocated funds to re-erect the
statue at the Stalin museum.
The decision seems to be partly the result of a political upheaval
in Georgia. Mr Saakashvili's party was defeated in parliamentary
elections last October by the Georgian Dream coalition, which wants
to repair Georgia's rocky relations with Russia.
Gori's new mayor, David Razuadze, from Georgian Dream says Stalin's
statue will be re-installed by the summer.
Damien McGuinness BBC News, Tbilisi
Visiting the garden of Georgian pensioner Ushangi Davitashvili is
an eerie experience. Life-sized statues of Joseph Stalin poke out
from behind bushes. And the brick walls are lined with hundreds of
photographs of the former dictator. This is a shrine to a man who is
seen in the West as responsible for the deaths of millions of people.
According to a new survey by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers
almost half of Georgians have a positive attitude towards Stalin.
Which doesn't mean there's nostalgia for the former Soviet Union or a
risk of a return to authoritarianism. Georgia is a fiercely independent
state. And surveys show that the vast majority of Georgians want to
join Nato and the EU.
But Stalin is Georgia's most famous son. And in a culture which
reveres strong personalities, that counts for a lot.
"People in Gori have this feeling that the name Stalin is known in
the world and so is their little town... Georgia is known worldwide
because of Stalin. And the position of the previous government,
which was basically an insult, was unbearable. And I say, you can
condemn Stalin's period, you can condemn political repressions and
the old way of life - but you should not touch personalities."
The statue seems to have become part of the tug of war between
Georgia's political parties.
Georgian 'backsliding' Over cappuccino in an upmarket cafe in the
capital, Tbilisi, Giorgi Kandelaki, an MP from Mr Saakashvili's party,
told me the decision to re-erect the statue was a backward step.
"We lost the elections and so unfortunately we have many signs of
democratic backsliding in Georgia or flirtations with the Soviet past.
And the comeback of this statue is one such symbolic but very worrying
sign. And in Gori the decision to allocate funds to reinstate the
statue was made not by some private people but by the city council
and by the local governor, who represents the ruling council. I think
this is a scandalous fact."
Mr Kandelaki, 31, says the statue should have been removed years ago.
"No country that aspires to become a normal country can have a symbol
that pays tribute to Stalin. Everyone in the world knows Stalin as
the bloodiest dictator in history. And the second reason relates
specifically to Georgia. In 1921, when Georgia was a parliamentary
democracy, Stalin was the initiator of the Soviet Russian invasion
and occupation of Georgia."
But history in Georgia is a complicated business.
Lasha Bakradze, a professor of Soviet history at Tbilisi University,
recently presented a new survey commissioned by the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, which found that 45% of Georgians expressed
a positive attitude to Stalin. He says the poll shows that Georgia
needs to confront and work through its Soviet past.
Even a couple of Stalin's famous pipes are on display in the Gori
museum "Nothing is done to explain to the population who Stalin was,"
he told me.
"It has not been talked about. Also in school books you don't find
explanations about what the totalitarian system was. And so it is
understandable why people are still in this Soviet way of thinking,
that Stalin was 'Our Boy', a very strong leader."
"Georgian society has a problem," he continued.
"On one side they can have sympathy for Stalin and on the other side
the biggest part of Georgians are pro-democracy, freedom and so on. It
is very primitive, patriotic thinking. Somebody was famous and this
somebody was Georgian."
At the museum, change is coming - if slowly. A small room under the
stairs displays the names of a few dozen local victims of Stalin's
repressions. But even as further revisions are being discussed, Olga
Tochishvili and her colleagues are looking forward to the return of
the statue - not for political reasons, but for tourism.
"Many foreign visitors asked us, where is Stalin's statue? I think
it will be better to put up the statue in front of our museum for
our visitors, because they want to see the statue."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21656615
4 March 2013 Last updated at 19:01 ET
By Bethany Bell BBC News, Gori, Georgia
Gori's giant statue of Stalin was removed in 2010 - but now it is
to reappear On the 60th anniversary of the death of Soviet supreme
ruler Joseph Stalin there is still controversy over how to view his
legacy in his homeland Georgia.
Millions died when Stalin imposed iron discipline and state terror
to root out "enemies of the people" and build a communist state.
But in the town of Gori, where he was born, the city council recently
decided to re-erect a huge statue of Stalin, which the pro-Western
government of President Mikheil Saakashvili took down almost three
years ago. It is a sign, historians say, that the country needs to
confront its Soviet past.
Gori's main tourist attraction is its museum to Stalin. The ornate
building, with its collection of heroic photographs and Stalin's
death mask, appears frozen in time - a Soviet shrine to the dictator,
almost untouched since the museum was built in 1957.
But Olga Tochishvili, who has worked as a guide here since the Soviet
era, says attitudes towards Stalin are changing.
"In Georgia, most of the old generation like Stalin. They think he
was a great statesman, with his small mistakes. Young people don't
like Stalin, of course. Our young people are not interested in history
and they don't like Stalin."
Hero or villain?
The Gori museum highlights the Soviet-era Stalin personality cult
But it is not just attitudes. Gori's cityscape has changed as well.
The main boulevard, Stalin Street, used to be dominated by the huge
statue of the dictator. But it was removed in 2010 by Mr Saakashvili's
westernising government - a decision that upset many people in Gori.
Nikoloz Kapanadze, who earns tips by helping cars to find parking
places in Stalin Street, told me the statue should be returned.
"Everybody wants that, not only me, but the whole of Gori, the whole
of Georgia wants the monument to be installed where it was before. I
am 65 and I've only heard good things about him throughout my life."
A few weeks ago the city council allocated funds to re-erect the
statue at the Stalin museum.
The decision seems to be partly the result of a political upheaval
in Georgia. Mr Saakashvili's party was defeated in parliamentary
elections last October by the Georgian Dream coalition, which wants
to repair Georgia's rocky relations with Russia.
Gori's new mayor, David Razuadze, from Georgian Dream says Stalin's
statue will be re-installed by the summer.
Damien McGuinness BBC News, Tbilisi
Visiting the garden of Georgian pensioner Ushangi Davitashvili is
an eerie experience. Life-sized statues of Joseph Stalin poke out
from behind bushes. And the brick walls are lined with hundreds of
photographs of the former dictator. This is a shrine to a man who is
seen in the West as responsible for the deaths of millions of people.
According to a new survey by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers
almost half of Georgians have a positive attitude towards Stalin.
Which doesn't mean there's nostalgia for the former Soviet Union or a
risk of a return to authoritarianism. Georgia is a fiercely independent
state. And surveys show that the vast majority of Georgians want to
join Nato and the EU.
But Stalin is Georgia's most famous son. And in a culture which
reveres strong personalities, that counts for a lot.
"People in Gori have this feeling that the name Stalin is known in
the world and so is their little town... Georgia is known worldwide
because of Stalin. And the position of the previous government,
which was basically an insult, was unbearable. And I say, you can
condemn Stalin's period, you can condemn political repressions and
the old way of life - but you should not touch personalities."
The statue seems to have become part of the tug of war between
Georgia's political parties.
Georgian 'backsliding' Over cappuccino in an upmarket cafe in the
capital, Tbilisi, Giorgi Kandelaki, an MP from Mr Saakashvili's party,
told me the decision to re-erect the statue was a backward step.
"We lost the elections and so unfortunately we have many signs of
democratic backsliding in Georgia or flirtations with the Soviet past.
And the comeback of this statue is one such symbolic but very worrying
sign. And in Gori the decision to allocate funds to reinstate the
statue was made not by some private people but by the city council
and by the local governor, who represents the ruling council. I think
this is a scandalous fact."
Mr Kandelaki, 31, says the statue should have been removed years ago.
"No country that aspires to become a normal country can have a symbol
that pays tribute to Stalin. Everyone in the world knows Stalin as
the bloodiest dictator in history. And the second reason relates
specifically to Georgia. In 1921, when Georgia was a parliamentary
democracy, Stalin was the initiator of the Soviet Russian invasion
and occupation of Georgia."
But history in Georgia is a complicated business.
Lasha Bakradze, a professor of Soviet history at Tbilisi University,
recently presented a new survey commissioned by the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, which found that 45% of Georgians expressed
a positive attitude to Stalin. He says the poll shows that Georgia
needs to confront and work through its Soviet past.
Even a couple of Stalin's famous pipes are on display in the Gori
museum "Nothing is done to explain to the population who Stalin was,"
he told me.
"It has not been talked about. Also in school books you don't find
explanations about what the totalitarian system was. And so it is
understandable why people are still in this Soviet way of thinking,
that Stalin was 'Our Boy', a very strong leader."
"Georgian society has a problem," he continued.
"On one side they can have sympathy for Stalin and on the other side
the biggest part of Georgians are pro-democracy, freedom and so on. It
is very primitive, patriotic thinking. Somebody was famous and this
somebody was Georgian."
At the museum, change is coming - if slowly. A small room under the
stairs displays the names of a few dozen local victims of Stalin's
repressions. But even as further revisions are being discussed, Olga
Tochishvili and her colleagues are looking forward to the return of
the statue - not for political reasons, but for tourism.
"Many foreign visitors asked us, where is Stalin's statue? I think
it will be better to put up the statue in front of our museum for
our visitors, because they want to see the statue."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21656615