The Monument
The monument, originally in Štefánik square in the Smíchov district, was dedicated on 29 July 1945. The audience, including Soviet General Ivan Konev and top municipal representatives, admired a tank on a massive five-metre stone pedestal with a barrel pointing menacingly westwards. The monument was built to commemorate the arrival of Konev's First Ukrainian Front, namely the Fourth Tank Brigade led by Lelyushenko on 9 May 1945.
The monument was intended to represent Lt I.G. Goncharenko's T-34-85 medium tank of the 63rd Guards Tank Brigade, 10th Guards Tank Corps, the first Soviet tank to enter Prague in May 1945 and subsequently knocked out in the street fighting. Unfortunately, the actual monument bore an IS-2m heavy tank instead of the famous T-34, with its turret mislabelled 23 (Goncharenko's tank had actually borne the tactical marking I-24).
Following the communist coup in 1948, the monument was raised to the status of National Cultural Monument, commemorating the liberation of Prague by the Red Army, and the square was renamed to Square of Soviet Tank Crews.
Read more about this topic: Monument To Soviet Tank Crews
Famous quotes containing the word monument:
“I see his monument is still there.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The monument of death will outlast the memory of the dead. The Pyramids do not tell the tale which was confided to them; the living fact commemorates itself.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)