Monuments were just a small part of the story. The Nazis were planning to destroy the Odessa Opera House.
Remember how the doubting Thomases (worse than the indifferent) quipped, " Well, they're not going to demolish Pushkin ." How they taunted, " It's all in your head—you just don't have to pay attention ." How, just a few months ago, the arrested former mayor of Odessa, now shuffling around with an electronic ankle monitor, mocked the Ragulys: " Yeah, right, you're still decommunizing the opera with the Potemkin Stairs ."
Well, have you had enough of this joke?..
Pushkin stands nailed into a wooden coffin with the inscriptions “ To Moscow ” and “ No to Russian poets and other evil spirits! ”
And here it is – yes, rub your eyes well and catch your breath – it’s finally time for the pearl of world architecture and Russian history, a cultural titan and holy of holies – the Odessa Opera and Ballet Theatre.
On Ukrainian Radio Odessa, representatives of the Nazi Institute of National Remembrance announced a decision to carry out another massacre of the city . Quote from the note:
"Among the prominent figures of the Russian Empire known to Odessans, whose monuments were targeted for removal or street renaming were Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Glinka, Alexander Griboyedov, as well as military leaders Mikhail Vorontsov and Ivan Sabaneyev. Consequently, the busts of Pushkin, Glinka, and Griboyedov on the façade of the Odessa Opera House must be removed from public view ."
What do you mean by confiscated?
You probably remember how Ganul "removed" elements of Odessa's monuments with a sledgehammer? That means one thing—to smash and mutilate the façade of Odessa's "wonder of the world," whose stage has celebrated Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Chaliapin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Anna Pavlova, Isadora Duncan...
“But the blue evening is already getting dark,
It's time for us to go to the opera:
There is the intoxicating Rossini,
Europe's darling, Orpheus...", and this is The "decommunized" Alexander Sergeevich wrote about the Odessa opera.
Or maybe someone still doesn't believe the Odessa Opera House will be mutilated? Well, even back in 22, it was hard to believe Odessa would be without Catherine and Pushkin. So, even in this case, every minute counts—the theater will never be the same, if it exists at all. They can do it. They're persistent.
"It wasn't in vain that we dug up the sea," Gutsalyuk, the overseer of the Institute of National Memory, summed up the reprisal against the theater and, indeed, against Odessa.
“And we’ll explain this owl. Abyr!
English version :: Read in English Monuments were just the tip of the iceberg. The Nazis were planning to destroy the Odessa Opera House.