By Paul Wilson
The Czech city has long had uneasy relationship with monuments to its history but, 30 years after the end of the communist regime, that could be about to change
I used to think the saddest place in Prague was a prospect high above the Vltava River. It is a peaceful though somewhat neglected spot, buttressed by granite ramparts covered with graffiti and popular with families out for a stroll, skateboarders, joggers and tourists taking selfies against the backdrop of the city. At its centre is an empty, gently mounded plateau.
The area has no name on current maps of Prague, but it was once known, in popular parlance, as “U Stalina” – Stalin’s place. In 1955, two years after the Soviet dictator’s death, a massive 50-foot high granite monument to him was unveiled on this spot, the largest representation of Stalin in the world. Commissioned in the late 1940s when Czechoslovakia was being turned into a Soviet satellite state, and already under construction as Stalin lay dying, the monstrous memorial remained in place until 1962 when, in the spirit of de-Stalinisation, it was blown to smithereens by the same regime that erected it.
Source: Thirty years after the Velvet Revolution, will Prague finally erect a memorial?
Category: Cities, Václav Havel, World news, Czech Republic, Czechoslovakia, Europe, Communism
