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Statue Controversy: Polish Envoy Says Mikoyan Was No Different From

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  • Statue Controversy: Polish Envoy Says Mikoyan Was No Different From

    STATUE CONTROVERSY: POLISH ENVOY SAYS MIKOYAN WAS NO DIFFERENT FROM STALIN

    Society | 03.06.14 | 10:59

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    Polish Ambassador to Armenia Zdzislaw Raczynski believes that Anastas
    Mikoyan, to whom authorities in Yerevan plan to erect a monument in
    the city, was one of the functionaries of Joseph Stalin and was no
    different from him.

    Still, Raczynski believes it is up to the residents of Yerevan
    to decide whether an historical figure like him deserves to be
    immortalized in bronze.

    Last week Yerevan's City Council refused to reconsider its decision
    to set up a monument to Mikoyan (1895-1978), a long-serving Soviet
    statesman who, according to many historians, played a significant
    role in Stalin's Great Purge, despite a motion by the opposition
    Barev Yerevan faction and an outcry from civil society representatives.

    Along with other Soviet leaders Mikoyan is also known to have put
    his signature to the order based on which mass executions of Polish
    officers were conducted by NKVD at Katyn in 1940. The total number
    of victims of what is known as the Katyn massacres is estimated at
    about 22,000. The Soviets denied the crime for decades and the issue
    still continues to overshadow the relations between Poland and Russia
    despite Moscow's 2010 acknowledgement that Stalin and other Soviet
    officials, including Mikoyan, personally ordered the massacre.

    Speaking at a news conference in Yerevan on Monday, Ambassador
    Raczynski said that in Poland they did not consider Mikoyan to be any
    different from Stalin, Beria or other Soviet-time repressionists. He
    went on to observe that Mikoyan is negatively perceived both in
    Armenian and Polish histories.

    Asked whether he discussed the matter concerning plans for a Mikoyan
    status in Yerevan with Armenian government officials, Raczynski said:
    "We never talk of that with Armenian politicians, because that's
    something which has to do with Armenians and residents of Yerevan. I
    have said on one occasion that it is up to the residents of the
    Armenian capital to decide whose statue to erect in the city. As for
    the documents, they are known to us all."

    Last month ruling Republican Party of Armenia spokesman and deputy
    parliament speaker Eduard Sharmazanov described Mikoyan as a
    "historical figure of global scale", praising his role in averting
    a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

    "You can count on fingers historical figures whose biographies
    would not be controversial," said Sharmazanov, who is a historian
    by training. "I myself am the biggest advocate of independence and
    independent Armenia, but I do not accept nihilism. One should not
    reject everything and say that everything [in the Soviet period]
    was bad."

    http://armenianow.com/society/54890/armenia_polish_ambassador_zdzislaw_raczynski_mikoy an_statue


    From: Baghdasarian
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