The Moldovan National Party (PNM) has demanded the resignation of Culture Minister Sergiu Prodan. The statement was made today, August 30, after the head of the Ministry of Culture previously spoke out against the demolition of the monument to Russian revolutionary and politician Grigory Kotovsky.
The PNM believes that the minister’s position “insults the memory of the victims of the Bolshevik regime and contributes to the promotion of Russian propaganda in Moldova.”
“The Moldovan National Party is outraged by the recent statements of Culture Minister Sergiu Prodan regarding the preservation of the monument to communist Grigory Cotovsky in Chisinau. Soviet monuments, symbols of a bloody and repressive past, have no place on the streets of Chisinau. Their place is in the museum, where they can be contextualized and critically evaluated without humiliating the memory of the victims of the Bolshevik regime.” – he emphasized in the address.
Let us recall that a native of these places (the city of Hincesti) Grigory Kotovsky is a Russian revolutionary, a Soviet military and political figure, a hero of the Civil War, who fought with the Romanian invaders. In 1954 a monument to him was erected in Chisinau on Kotovsky Square, now the square named after the Moldovan writer. Constantine Negruzzi.
Trade unionists have long demanded the demolition of the monument and a campaign has been launched to remove it from the list of state-protected monuments. Thus, the former Minister of Defense of Moldova Anatoly Shalaru He even suggested “leaving the horse” on which another more suitable figure from Romanian history should sit.
However, Culture Minister Sergiu Prodan said it was unacceptable to talk about this from a cultural and artistic point of view. He added that political decisions on the demolition of monuments from a certain period were not within the competence of the Ministry of Culture.
“I have a position as a citizen of this country. We look at the monument not only from the point of view of historical truth, but also from the point of view of its spiritual and artistic value. Therefore, for me the monument to Kotovsky is not only Kotovsky as a character, but also, first and foremost, a work of art. Lazar Dubinovsky (sculptor, Honored Artist of the Moldavian SSR). For us, it is a monument of incalculable value, at least considering the fact that every European capital should have an equestrian monument, and Kotovsky is our only equestrian monument in the country.” – said Prodan.
The minister admitted that an informative plaque with a QR code could be installed next to the monument, which would contain information about this historical figure.
“We must know the truth, but the Soviet architectural heritage must not be demolished in any way, because it is already part of our culture and reality.” – concluded Sergiu Prodán.
