Vladimir Medinsky
The Minister of culture of Russia Vladimir Medina believes that the country should expand the Pantheon of national heroes. The opinion he expressed in an article in the newspaper “Izvestia”.
“The national Pantheon of heroes exists in every country, without it there is no historical memory, there is no nation,” said Medina. He pointed out that the Pantheon is not a burial place of outstanding personalities, but rather a collection of bright people from culture, art, science, who live in people’s memory and the heroes who accomplished the feat.
As an example, “remaining in the shadow of” heroes he called Lieutenant Alexei Berest, commander of the soldiers Mikhail Yegorov and Meliton kantariya hoisted the Victory Banner over the Reichstag.
He also recalled that after the victory over the Polish-Lithuanian intervention in 1612 made heroes of the organizers of the militia of Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, Prince Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky and Voivod Mikhail Shein — lost.
Medina also noted that there are heroes, “whose exploits overwrite propaganda”, citing the example of Pavlik Morozov, Aleksei Stakhanov and Kliment Voroshilov. “The circulation of the novel “How the steel was tempered” at one time reached nearly 40 million copies. And ask the youth — who is Nikolai Ostrovsky? I think one in a thousand will be able to answer,” he said.
“Russia needs heroes. If you want to destroy the country, to transform the nation in population, knock out from under her. Unlike other countries, thank God, we do not need to invent. We have a large Pantheon of heroes, and the reason we feel embarrassed,” concluded Medina.
Earlier Medinsky urged the Ministry of foreign Affairs and Rossotrudnichestvo to support foreign screenings of Russian Patriotic paintings of the war.