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| Icon with Stalin doused with paint in Georgia | |
| 2024-01-10 | |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. [KavkazUzel] Unidentified people in the Tbilisi Cathedral poured paint on an icon depicting Joseph Stalin,
As the "Caucasian Knot" wrote, an icon depicting Joseph Stalin was spotted in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi, a researcher at the SovLab laboratory reported. This is an icon of St. Matrona, not Stalin, and portraits of the “great persecutors of the church” are sometimes depicted on icons, the Patriarchate of Georgia said. According to the conclusions of historians at the Laboratory for the Study of the Soviet Past, there is a revival of the cult of Stalin, at least 11 monuments and busts have been erected, often with the support of local authorities, and a Stalin Museum is functioning in Gori. Unidentified people poured paint on the icon of the Matrona of Moscow depicting Joseph Stalin in the Tbilisi Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Sameba. Police have launched an investigation into the vandalism. According to the Code of Administrative Violations, this act is punishable by a fine of 300 to 500 lari, the Mtavari Arkhi television company reported today on its website. As follows from a short video that activist Nata Peradze published on her Facebook page*, there are several spots of blue paint on the large icon, framed by the icon of St. Matrona with Stalin, but the image of Stalin itself is not affected. The information about the damage to the icon was drawn to the attention of the Caucasian Knot commentator guran. “The Georgian Orthodox Church called the scandal with the icon with Stalin “far-fetched,” he added in a comment. The icon, hung in Sameba several months ago, describes the life of Matrona of Moscow (canonized as a locally revered saint of the Moscow diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1999). One of its stories tells how Matrona blessed Stalin to defend Moscow. The icon was donated to Sameba by the leaders of the pro-Russian Alliance of Patriots party Irma Inashvili and David Tarkhan-Mouravi, Georgian News reported today. The presence of this icon with Stalin in the Holy Trinity Cathedral is an insult to the memory of the victims of Soviet Russian totalitarianism, SovLab, the Laboratory for the Study of the Soviet Past, announced today on its Facebook page. “During the reign of Joseph Stalin, hundreds of clergy were executed in Georgia, most of them leaders and parishioners of the Georgian Orthodox Church, especially during the anti-Soviet uprising of 1924 and then during Stalin’s terror of 1937-1938. During Stalin’s reign, about 80 thousand clergy and up to a million citizens,” the message says. Activists called on the Patriarchate of Georgia to “ensure the removal of the icon from the Holy Trinity Cathedral.” “We find it particularly problematic that members of the government and parliament of Georgia, who are supposed to represent all citizens of Georgia, stood without reaction at the place where this icon was placed during the Christmas liturgy. They are obliged to react to the display of totalitarian symbols in public space, as required law (Freedom Charter). We call on the Georgian government to act in accordance with the law and fulfill its duty, obliging it not to allow the display of Soviet and Nazi totalitarian symbols in public places,” the statement said. Georgian legislation prohibits the use of communist and fascist symbols, their monuments, bas-reliefs, inscriptions and names under threat of a fine. In addition, the use of Soviet symbols also caused protests. Thus, on May 9, 2018, the socialists, who brought portraits of Stalin, USSR flags and St. George ribbons to a Tbilisi park, got into a fight with an activist of the “Strength in Unity” movement, who expressed dissatisfaction with Soviet symbols. At the same time, on May 9, 2023, the Parliament of Georgia congratulated veterans on Victory Day, using a photograph with Soviet symbols banned in the country. The photo was changed after the opposition was outraged by the violation of the law. For many Georgians, Stalin remains an important symbol, but he lacks serious political content. Rather, he becomes the object of local patriotism and popular worship. A portrait of Stalin (the son of a shoemaker, like the “patron saint of shoemakers”) hangs in every shoemaker next to the icon of the Mother of God. Georgian society for the most part is not prone to reflection and remains conservative, while such sentiments are intensifying. Citizens of Georgia avoid discussions on painful topics; reassessment of values is difficult for them. As it turned out, the established myth of Stalin as the “great son of the Georgian people” was never abandoned, the Carnegie Endowment noted in 2013 in its report on the results of a survey on attitudes towards Stalin in the Caucasus. Many Georgians are unaware of the scale of Stalin's repressions and are proud of Stalin as a fellow countryman who held the highest office in the Soviet Union, historians said on August 2, 2020. Some Georgian residents interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" confirmed their sympathy for Stalin. | |
| Posted by:badanov |