Installed last summer in St. Petersburg, a memorial plaque in honor of the Finnish Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim will be stored in the Museum of the First World War "War Chamber" in Tsarskoye Selo. Restoration work on the board, which has been attacked several times by vandals, will not be carried out. As explained in the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO), the sign will become "a symbol of historical disputes in modern Russian society."
A memorial plaque in honor of the Finnish Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim will be stored in the Museum of the First World War "War Chamber" in Tsarskoye Selo. This is stated in a message published on the website of the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO), which is chaired by Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky. According to this report, it was the RVIO that dismantled the memorial sign.
“The controversial figure of Karl Mannerheim is a subject of study and a reason for discussion among historians. At the same time, illegal actions and a “war on monuments” are not the method of this discussion at all,” the organization’s website says. “The memorial sign to Karl Mannerheim will be stored in the Military Chamber without restoration, as a symbol of historical disputes in modern Russian society.”
Yesterday, late at night, a memorial plaque, which was located on the building of the Military Academy of Logistics named after General of the Army Khrulev in St. Petersburg, was dismantled by people in camouflage. An empty space on the facade of the academy was painted over by workers.
The press service of the museum noted that at present "the board is placed outside the building - on the wall in the courtyard of the "Martial Chamber"", but now "the courtyard is closed for the winter, so the new exhibit will be publicly available only in the summer." But the museum staff is ready to "show the memorial plaque in winter at the request of individual tourist groups."
The government of St. Petersburg has not yet commented on the incident. The head of the culture committee, Konstantin Sukhenko, did not answer calls and messages from Kommersant.
Recall that a plaque in honor of Marshal Mannerheim was installed in St. Petersburg in June. The opening ceremony was attended by ex-head of the presidential administration Sergei Ivanov and Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky. At the same time, the memorial sign was installed bypassing legal procedures and was not officially listed on anyone's balance sheet.
The installation of the commemorative sign caused a mixed reaction from the public. The board was attacked many times: in particular, the Other Russia activists doused it with paint and chopped it with an axe. Yesterday morning, the police detained four activists of the "National Committee of Historical Authenticity" who were trying to install a sign "In honor of the most cowardly governor of St. Petersburg" under the Mannerheim plaque.
The leader of the St. Petersburg branch of the Other Russia Andrei Dmitriev on the air of Kommersant FM:“We really did these promotions all the time and planned to continue. This is the merit of all the townspeople who were indignant. If we go the usual way, write papers and requests, I think the authorities would not react to this, and the board would still hang like that. And here are the shares direct action when they began to throw paint on the board, pour it with acid - this already made them move.
Maria Karpenko, St. Petersburg
How Sergey Ivanov and Vladimir Medinsky opened a memorial plaque to Karl Mannerheim
On June 16, a memorial plaque to Carl Gustav Mannerheim was solemnly opened in St. Petersburg. At the ceremony, to the dissatisfied cries of supporters of the Anti-Maidan movement, head of the presidential administration Sergei Ivanov and Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky spoke. Mr. Ivanov suggested not to “throw out the words from the song”: after all, before cooperating with Adolf Hitler as President of Finland, Karl Mannerheim was a hero of the Russian tsarist army.
A memorial plaque to Finnish Field Marshal Karl Mannerheim was opened in St. Petersburg.
It is installed on the facade of the building of the Military Academy of Logistics on Zakharyevskaya Street in St. Petersburg.
The head of the Kremlin administration Sergey Ivanov took part in the installation ceremony of the memorial. “As they say, you can’t throw words out of a song. No one is going to whitewash Mannerheim's actions after 1818, but until 1818 he served Russia, and to be completely frank, he lived and served in Russia longer than he served and lived in Finland, ”he said .
Ivanov recalled Mannerheim's 31-year service in the Russian army during the Russo-Japanese War. He noted that the Finnish field marshal was wounded twice and was awarded high state awards.
Ivanov said that he brought two documents related to Mannerheim with him to the events. The first document is a report-petition of the field marshal for dismissal from military service written January 1, 1918. Mannerheim in the document asked for a pension. The second document brought by Ivanov contained an order of the Soviet government on the appointment of Mannerheim's pension in the amount of 3,761 rubles. “That is, if you call a spade a spade, General Mannerheim was a Soviet military pensioner,” said the head of the Kremlin administration.
Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky noted at the memorial plaque installation ceremony that the monuments to the heroes of the First World War, which then ended up on opposite sides of the barricades, are an attempt to overcome the tragic split in society. “To those who are now shouting there, I want to remind from us: you don’t have to be holier than the Pope and you don’t have to try to be a greater patriot and communist than Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, who personally defended Mannerheim, ensured his election and preservation of the presidency for him Finland and knew how to treat a defeated but worthy enemy with respect,” said Medinsky.
The minister noted that the commemorative plaque is being installed in order to preserve the memory: “And now the plaque in honor of Mannerheim is another attempt by the Russian Military Historical Society, another our attempt to overcome the tragic split in our society on the eve of the centenary of the Russian revolution. That is why we erect monuments to the heroes of the First World War throughout the country, who later ended up on opposite sides of the barricades.”
In turn, General Director of the State Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky believes that Mannerheim is more worthy of perpetuating his memory in St. Petersburg than many other personalities. He said this in an interview with reporters at SPIEF-2016.
“We answered this question a long time ago. We did a big exhibition about Mannerheim as an officer of the Russian General Staff, an officer of the Russian Guards [in 2005 the Hermitage hosted the exhibition "Mannerheim. Russian officer. Marshal of Finland" - ed.]. He did a lot, in particular, he was an outstanding Russian intelligence officer, traveler and everything else. Therefore, regardless of everything else, the first part of his biography is ours, St. Petersburg,” Piotrovsky said. “This plaque has a right to exist more than many other things,” he said.
The press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov, commenting on the opening of the memorial plaque, said that the Finnish military and statesman Karl Mannerheim is an outstanding personality who plays an important role in Russian history: “Indeed, the identity of Mannerheim is still controversial. But one can definitely say that this is an outstanding personality, this is a personality related to our history, and a personality whose role will be studied by historians for a long time to come.”
Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim served in the Russian army in 1889-1917. During the First World War, he served at the headquarters of the Russian command. Not accepting October revolution 1917 Mannerheim returned to Finland.
From 1939, he served as Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Army. In this capacity, he twice led the Finnish army in the wars against the USSR - in the Soviet-Finnish and Great Patriotic Wars. At the end of the Second World War, being the head of state, he drew up the first draft of a treaty of friendship and mutual assistance between the two countries.
MOSCOW, 18 October. /TASS/. The installation of a memorial plaque to Karl Mannerheim in St. Petersburg was not a mistake, the protests are connected with ignorance of history, Sergei Ivanov, special representative of the President of the Russian Federation for environmental protection, ecology and transport, is sure. As head of the Kremlin administration, in June of this year he participated in the opening of a memorial plaque.
"Probably, it was necessary to explain to people in advance elementary things related to knowledge of history," Ivanov said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda. In his opinion, "our people, unfortunately, often either do not know history, or, even when they find out some individual facts, they do not want to admit them point-blank." "A very narrow, marginal part of the population, represented by such an unregistered party as the Other Russia, protested against the installation of a memorial sign to Mannerheim," Ivanov believes. He emphasized that "the main falsification is that the plaque was installed to the Finnish Marshal Mannerheim."
"It's a complete lie! This is a monument to the Russian lieutenant general Mannerheim," the presidential envoy explained. He recalled that "Mannerheim did a lot for the Russian Empire," therefore, for example, he is a Knight of St. George. “Of course, Mannerheim is a contradictory figure. But this is an example of how the life of people, and not just ordinary ones, was radically changed, distorted in October 17 of the year (October Socialist Revolution),” Ivanov is sure.
Our people, unfortunately, often either do not know history, or, even when they find out some individual facts, they do not want to admit them point-blank
Sergey Ivanov
Special Representative of the President for Environmental Protection, Ecology and Transport
"We do not say that the Finnish citizen Mannerheim (and he became one after the 18th year) brought a lot of benefits to the Soviet Union. But we say that he brought a lot of benefits, including performing responsible intelligence tasks through the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff Russian Empire, that, after all, he was a Soviet military pensioner," Ivanov said.
historical figure
Of the 83 years of Karl Mannerheim's life, 30 were associated with Russia. In 1887 he entered the Nikolaev cavalry school Petersburg, served in the 15th Alexandria Dragoon Regiment, in the Cavalier Guard Regiment. In 1897-1903, Mannerheim served at the imperial court in St. Petersburg, participated in the Russo-Japanese War, commanded units of the active Russian army in the First world war.
After the Bolsheviks came to power, Mannerheim left for Finland, which in December 1917 declared independence from Russia. In 1918 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Army. In 1941-1944, Mannerheim led the Finnish armed forces in the war against the USSR, while, contrary to German demands, he refrained from attacking Leningrad from the north. Remaining the commander-in-chief of the Finnish armed forces, in August 1944 he was elected president of the country and concluded a truce with the USSR.
Mannerheim is a national hero of Finland. The memorial plaque of Karl Mannerheim, which had been located on Zakharyevskaya Street in St. Petersburg for several months, was transferred in October by the Russian Military Historical Society to the Tsarskoe Selo Museum-Reserve. Now it will be stored as an exhibit in the Museum of the First World War "War Chamber".
Commemorative plaque in honor of Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim in St. Petersburg
June 18, 2016 in St. Petersburg on the building of the Military Engineering and Technical University (formerly Nikolaev Engineering School) a memorial plaque was opened in honor of Field Marshal of the Finnish Army Baron Karl Gustav Emil Mannerheim. The events held in St. Petersburg were decorated with state honors. The solemn ceremony of opening the memorial plaque was attended by: the head of the presidential administration Sergey Ivanov and Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky. Obviously, this event, through the figure of Ivanov, is given the highest political significance (it coincided with the opening of the next St. Petersburg International Forum) and cultural - through the presence of Medinsky. Now we can state that the opening of the memorial plaque to Mannerheim had a heavy and extremely negative public response, both in St. Petersburg and throughout the country. Further we will leave the blockade aspect of the issue out of consideration. Enough has already been said about this. It will be about something else, something more important.
First of all, the absurdity of the Mannerheim memorial, which is sometimes so characteristic of official Russia and quite described by the pen of the same Saltykov-Shchedrin or Gogol, attracts attention. First question. Excuse me, why did a memorial plaque in honor of Mannerheim decorate the building of the Military Engineering School - the modern successor to the Imperial Nikolaev Engineering School? After all, they studied here: Hero Soviet Union lieutenant general Dmitry Mikhailovich Karbyshev, hero of the defense of Sevastopol engineer-general Eduard Ivanovich Totleben, hero of the defense of Port Arthur, lieutenant general Roman Isidorovich Kondratenko, writer Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, composer Caesar Antonovich Cui and, finally, if they really wanted, as Minister Medinsky said, to commemorate the First World War - the commander-in-chief Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and many, many other glorious names. Did Mannerheim study at the Nikolaev Engineering School? Was he a military engineer? No, his baronial Swedish brains from childhood were tuned to something else - to knights, horses, hunting, dressage, horse racing.
Mannerheim was a cavalryman. In St. Petersburg, he studied at the Nikolaev Cavalry School. Therefore, if you already decided to glorify Mannerheim, then it would be more appropriate to place a memorial plaque at Lermontovsky (Novo-Peterhofsky) Prospekt, house 54. It was here, in the St. Petersburg Kolomna district, that the Nikolaev Cavalry School was located, and it was here that Mannerheim studied in Russia. But the organizers of the Mannerheim memorial in St. Petersburg came up with the idea of linking Mannerheim with the Cavalier Guard Regiment. On the site of the modern building on Zakharyevskaya 22, where a commemorative plaque was now placed, until 1948 there was a house church of the Life Guards of the Cavalier Guard Regiment. Obvious nonsense. After all, in St. Petersburg in the city center on Potemkinskaya and Shpalernaya there are barracks buildings and an arena of the Cavalier Guard Regiment. These buildings have survived. Why was it necessary to mark the site of a non-existent church when there are preserved buildings related to the history of the cavalry guards?
Another nonsense. On an open memorial plaque we read the following text: "Lieutenant General of the Russian Army Gustav Karlovich Mannerheim served from 1887 to 1918." There is an obvious and significant inaccuracy here - Mannerheim served not just in the "Russian", but in the Russian Imperial Army. Mannerheim swore allegiance not to Russia, but to the sovereign emperor, autocrat of the All-Russian and his Imperial Majesty the All-Russian throne, heir. In Russia, Mannerheim belonged to a category that two centuries earlier had been called "serving Germans." Personal Service Features Russian emperor foreigners created (such was the condition for circumventing the prohibitions of the Faith) both the official ideology of such a service and the personal motivation corresponding to it, which was fully shared by the same Mannerheim. Therefore, it is natural and legitimate that in a situation of revolutionary collapse, Mannerheim "parted", as he said, with the Russian army and Russia, since his personal official connection with the emperor was broken. In his memoirs, he wrote: “In those days, thoughts of judgment day often came to me, and I was not at all surprised when on November 8 the newspapers wrote that Kerensky and his government had been overthrown.” On a fictitious business trip order, Mannerheim left for Finland, which declared independence on December 6, 1917. In his memoirs, Mannerheim wrote: “I noticed that Soviet authority[in Russia] is getting stronger and becoming a threat to the young Finnish state.” Such an act by Mannerheim in the logic of a “serving German” could not be considered desertion just because his oath to the emperor was no longer valid, and the imperial Russian army crumbled before his eyes.
Mannerheim in a German-style Finnish uniform in 1918. Source: Wikipedia
Minister Medinsky said that the memorial plaque is being installed in order to preserve the memory of "a worthy citizen of Russia." But Mannerheim was never a "citizen of Russia." Note that in the Russian Empire there were no citizens at all, but there were subjects. And Mannerheim has always been a subject of the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was part of the Russian Empire through a personal union on the basis of broad autonomy with its own citizenship, taxes, budget, currency and a border protected from the rest of Russia. Finland as part of the Russian Empire was another state, however, deprived of sovereignty.
At the opening ceremony of the memorial plaque in St. Petersburg, the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov, said that "no one is going to whitewash Mannerheim's actions after 1918, but until 1918 he served Russia." Well, firstly, as we have already pointed out, Mannerheim served the emperor and Russia only through him, and, secondly, if Mannerheim was not “whitewashed” “after 1918”, then what about Mannerheim in 1918, when he , being the commander-in-chief of the Finnish army of the Senate, by his own admission, he fought against Russia. Mannerheim's official interpretation and personal explanation of the events in Finland in 1918 is a "war of liberation" against Russia and internal Finnish traitors who sided with Russia. The events were interpreted in the category of national, but not class struggle. History moves through the struggle of ethnic groups, not classes. That is, the army led by the Senate of Finland fought first of all against the Russians and only then against the Finnish Reds. military action in civil war in Finland in 1918 began with the disarmament of the Russians by the Finns military units and garrisons stationed in Finland. In his memoirs, Mannerheim wrote: “Military actions were directed against those Russian armed units that remained in Finland, despite the recognition by the Soviet government of the independence of our state. That is why the outbreak of war was a war of liberation, a struggle for freedom. This fact cannot change the fact that soon we were forced to conduct military operations not only against the Russians, but also against the rebels inside the country. Mannerheim in 1918, by his own admission, fought against the "Russian yoke". Mannerheim had a clear line with regard to Russian volunteers who acted as military advisers or fought for the Finnish Red Guard - when arrested or captured, they were allowed to be shot on the spot. They were not recognized as combatants, unlike the Red Finns.
Already on February 11, 1918, Mannerheim gave the order that civilian Russians who participated in the activities of the Finnish Red Guard should be shot as spies, they were allowed to be killed on the spot. This order, in the conditions of the civil war in Finland, was interpreted by Mannerheim's subordinates very arbitrarily and affected people who did not participate in hostilities and had nothing to do with the Reds. This kind of punitive practice was “crowned” with mass executions in Vyborg, captured by the Finnish Whites, of Russians in general, often having nothing to do with the Reds, moreover, often anti-Bolshevik. Among the Russians shot in Vyborg there were even teenagers and women. Among those shot during the Vyborg massacre were not only subjects of the Russian Empire, but also Russians - subjects of the Grand Duchy of Finland. The extrajudicial executions of Russians in Vyborg were attended by Finnish huntsmen who arrived from Germany - subjects of the Grand Duchy of Finland, who at one time voluntarily went to fight on the fronts of the First World War on the side of Germany against Russia, although Finland, as part of the Russian Empire, was at war with Germany. Mannerheim's position as Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Army of the Senate, after the arrival of the main part of the Finnish rangers from Germany, was so weak and conditional that he could not prevent excesses in Vyborg and could not investigate the war crimes of rangers and Finnish nationalist activists (1). None of the participants in the Vyborg massacre was punished, although unofficially all the killers were known. Therefore, the responsibility for this atrocity also lies with Mannerheim, as the commander of the army.
Ultimately, the logic of the World War in 1918 turned out to be stronger than Mannerheim. According to him, in 1918 he fought for the "freedom of Finland", by which he understood the independence of the country, and against the "Russian yoke", the "age-old oppressor" of Russia and the "centuries-old shackles". However, in April 1918, German units landed in Finland - Baltic division von der Goltz and brigade von Brandenstein. The German occupation of the country began. Finland fell into vassal dependence on Germany, which the Germans intended to secure by transferring the throne of the Grand Duchy of Finland to a German prince. This foreign policy course, oriented towards Germany, enjoyed the unconditional support of the leading circles of Finland that had won the civil war. The treaty with Germany, signed on March 7, 1918, led to the fact that the independence of Finland did not take place at that time, and Mannerheim, as a former Russian general, was no longer needed by the Finnish authorities. He resigned from the post of commander in chief of the army. The Finnish government concluded a series of enslaving treaties with Germany that effectively deprived the country of sovereignty. Under the March Treaty, Germany received the right to establish military bases in Finland, and the Finnish fleet was placed at the complete disposal of the German Admiralty. A month before the surrender of Germany on October 9, 1918, the Finnish parliament, on instructions from Berlin, elected a relative of the emperor as the king of Finland Wilhelm II Hessian prince Friedrich Karl. And only the defeat of Germany in the World War in 1918 prevented the transition of Finland from Russian sphere influence in the German.
After August 1918, when the defeat of Germany became obvious, Mannerheim refocused on the victorious Entente. The Finnish government sent him to talks in London and Paris. as a former general Russian service, who fought against Germany on the fields of the World War, he was provided with the confidence of the allies. Such a turn provided Mannerheim with the post of regent of the Grand Duchy of Finland. Recall that this throne still formally belonged to the Russian imperial dynasty. The Russian Whites, who fought for the "united and indivisible" Russia, did not recognize the independence of white Finland. From their point of view, Mannerheim was a usurper of the Finnish throne and a separatist. Therefore, Mannerheim does not fit well into the Russian white movement, since the state interests of Finland dominated it.
Next, one should describe the anti-Russian role that the Entente prepared for Mannerheim and his subordinates in Finland and with which he agreed. IN historical literature Enough has been written about the actions of Finnish nationalists in 1920-1922 in Russian Karelia (Eastern Karelia in Finnish terminology) in an attempt to seize this territory and annex it to independent Finland. As early as May 15, 1918, the Finnish government officially declared war on Russia. The first Soviet-Finnish war followed - 1918-1920.
The events of the prehistory of this war unfolded around the negotiations between Soviet Russia and Germany around the Brest Peace. Mannerheim also participated in these events. On February 23, 1918, at the Antrea station, in a special address to the troops, he swore that he would not sheathe his sword until he liberated "Eastern Karelia". On February 27, 1918, the Finnish government sent a petition to Germany to consider Finland as an ally of Germany and demanded that Russia transfer East Karelia to Finland at the negotiations in Brest. At Mannerheim's headquarters, meanwhile, a plan was being developed to organize "national uprisings in Eastern Karelia", which were supposed to provoke the Finnish military personnel. March 7, 1918 was followed by an official statement of the head of the Finnish state - Regent Per Evinda Svinhufvuda that Finland is ready to make peace with Soviet Russia in the event of the transfer of Finland to Eastern Karelia, part of the Murmansk railway and the Kola Peninsula. These claims were confirmed by the Prime Minister of Finland. On March 15, 1918, Mannerheim approved the so-called. "Wallenius plan", providing for the capture of Eastern Karelia and the Kola Peninsula. On May 10, 1918, that is, a week before the official declaration of war, Finnish detachments attacked Pechenga on the Kola Peninsula, but were repulsed by local Red Guards. The suspicious activity of the Finns on the Kolya, behind which, the Allies believed, stood Germany, provoked the intervention of the Entente in the Russian North. In March 1918, British troops first appeared in Murmansk, by agreement with the Bolshevik government, in order to protect the warehouses of military ammunition supplied by the allies and to protect the region from the Germans and Finns. In June, a large detachment of 1,500 British soldiers and hundreds of Americans landed in Murmansk. After that, the Bolsheviks broke off relations with the Entente in July 1918. The war between the Bolsheviks and the interventionists provoked, in turn, a bloody civil war in the territory of the Russian North, which lasted until February 1920. There were no internal prerequisites for this civil war in this territory. It was provoked from outside, and it was the Finns and Mannerheim with their claims to Kola who set fire to the first fuse.
During his contacts with the allies in Paris and London, Mannerheim probed their attitude towards Finland and the Soviet-Finnish war. He easily identified that the Allies had two approaches to the future of Russia. One position was represented former ambassadors Great Britain in Russia lord Charles Harding and sir George Buchanan who believed that the former regime should be restored in the Russian state within its former borders. An exception was made for Poland, but not for Finland, for which the former broad autonomous status should be restored. Another trend in British diplomacy was embodied by the influential Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Robert Cecil. This one believed that Russia, after the appeasement and overthrow of the Bolsheviks, should be divided into parts. Obviously, it was this direction that was supposed to support the Finnish territorial claims regarding Russia. Mannerheim himself believed, as he diplomatically put it in his memoirs, that Russian state can only be created within new boundaries. In the spring of 1919, during negotiations with the British, Mannerheim asked for official approval of the Finnish war with Russia. As measures to establish peace, he demanded a plebiscite on the annexation of Eastern Karelia to Finland, the granting of autonomy by Moscow to the Arkhangelsk and Olonets provinces and the demilitarization of the Baltic Sea, i.e., the destruction of the Baltic Fleet.
It is significant that in 1920, as part of a book published in London "Atlas of peoples"(The Peoples Atlas Book) a map of Finland was presented with eastern borders according to the maximum Finnish requirements. Finland within these boundaries is presented not as a project, but as a real-life state. It should be noted that The Peoples Atlas Book was devoted to the geography of the World War and the post-war system. So, according to the aforementioned map, half of Russian Lapland with the most convenient non-freezing sea harbors in the Kola fiord went to Finland. It was planned that in addition to Pechenga with its ancient Orthodox monastery, Finland would receive the historical Russian city of Kola (founded in the middle of the 16th century) and new town- Murmansk (Romanov-on-Murman, founded in 1916). Here we especially note that at present Russia has only the only open oceanic seaport connected by communications with the country's hinterland - this is Murmansk. The proposed Finnish capturing territorial project, in fact, deprived Russia of the most convenient open outlet to the Ocean and a point convenient for control over the Arctic in the western initial part of the Northern Sea Route. In addition, let's not forget about the strategic military and communication position of the Kola Peninsula on the territory of Russia, which was completely determined during the First and Second World Wars and during the Cold War. Additionally, according to their project agreed with the British, the Finns intended to get Kandalaksha, as a result of which the White Sea turned from the Russian inland sea into an international reservoir.
Map of Finland from the British Atlas of Nations, 1920
However, this territorial expansionist plan promoted by Mannerheim was not destined to come true because of the position of the red Kremlin. The first Soviet-Finnish war ended with the Tartu Peace Treaty of October 14, 1920. Soviet Russia in Tartu, made significant territorial concessions to Finland, but this was a meager part of what the Finns originally wanted. In the Arctic, Finland received the Pechenga volost (Finn. Petsamo), western part Rybachy Peninsula and most of the Sredny Peninsula. Such a territorial concession became a retreat in the face of the Finnish claim to the better half of Russian Lapland. Such a turn of events became possible only because the Bolsheviks consolidated power, defeated their opponents in the civil war, and most importantly, won the civil war in the Russian North, forcing the Entente interventionists to leave this region. Soviet Russia spoke at the negotiations in Tartu from a position of strength, and this made it impossible for the Finnish project to seize the Arctic territories vital for it from Russia.
Mannerheim, among other things, was behind this project in Finland. As regent, Mannerheim was head of state of Finland from December 1918 to July 1919. Therefore, he is fully responsible for the first Soviet-Finnish war, and for the plans for Finnish territorial seizures in Russia. Already in 1918, Mannerheim showed himself to be the worst enemy of Russia, who wanted to inflict a strategic geopolitical defeat on her in the Arctic. This political plot with a strategic context once again emphasizes that Mannerheim in 1918-1919 was an enemy not only of the Bolsheviks, but also of historical Russia. Mannerheim never made a secret of what he sees as Finland's historical mission to "protect" Western civilization in the North. Therefore, in the light of the latest Arctic policy of Russia and the so-called. "Struggle for the Arctic" and the current confrontation between civilizations, the perpetuation of the memory of Mannerheim in the second historical capital of Russia by the highest state dignitaries of Russia looks like an inappropriate act, an act, in particular, that does not meet current interests Russian politics in the Arctic.
Whatever the circumstances and motives of the initiators of the installation of the commemorative plaque, various versions circulate, editorial joins the demands of the public to urgently dismantle it.
(1) On the Vyborg massacre, see Westerlund Lars. We were waiting for you as liberators, and you brought us death. St. Petersburg, Avrora-Design, 2013. // http://mitra-books.com/uploads/attachments/lars-vesterlund-431.pdf
Dmitry Semushin, editor
In St. Petersburg, the board to Carl Gustav Mannerheim, installed in June of this year, was removed. The memorial sign to the Finnish marshal was repeatedly doused with paint, and in October activists chopped it with an ax
Memorial plaque to Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim on the facade of the building of the Military Academy of Logistics after being hit with an ax by activists of the Other Russia, October 2016 (Photo: Georgy Polyakov/Interpress/TASS)
A memorial plaque to Finnish Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim was removed from the facade of a building on Zakharyevskaya Street in St. Petersburg, TASS reports. The same information is confirmed by Interfax and Fontanka. The latter writes that the board was removed by "unknowns". The publication also published photos from the scene.
“Mannerheim's personality is hotly debated. But we can definitely say that this is an outstanding personality and related to our history, and historians will study his role for a long time to come, ”Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov.
Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, who attended the unveiling ceremony of the memorial plaque, emphasized that the Mannerheim memorial was being erected in order to preserve the memory. He noted that the erection of monuments to the heroes of the First World War is an attempt to cope with the tragic split in society.
Karl Gustav Mannerheim was born in 1867 in the Grand Duchy of Finland (part of the Russian Empire), from 1887 to 1917 he served in the Russian army, participated in the Russo-Japanese War, commanded several units in the First World War. After the Bolsheviks came to power, Mannerheim left for Finland, which declared independence from Russia, and in 1918 was appointed commander-in-chief of the Finnish army. During winter war and World War II, he led the Finnish army in battles against the USSR. On August 4, 1944, Marshal Mannerheim became President of Finland.
