Freedom Monument - Political Significance

Political Significance

After the end of World War II, there were plans to demolish the monument, although little written evidence is available to historians and research is largely based on verbal testimony. On September 29, 1949 (although according to verbal testimony, the issue was first raised as early as October 1944) the Council of People's Commissars of the Latvian SSR proposed the restoration of the statue of the Russian Emperor Peter the Great.

While they did not expressly call for the demolition of the Freedom Monument, the only way to restore the statue to its original position would have been to tear down the monument. The result of the debate is unrecorded, but since the monument still stands the proposition was presumably rejected. The Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina (1889–1953; designer of the monumental sculpture Worker and Kolkhoz Woman) is sometimes credited with the rescue of the monument, although there is no written evidence to support the fact. According to her son, she took part in a meeting where the fate of the monument was discussed, at which her opinion, as reported by her son, was that the monument was of very high artistic value and that its demolition might hurt the most sacred feelings of the Latvian people.

The Freedom Monument remained, but its symbolism was reinterpreted. The three stars were said to stand for the newly created Baltic Soviet Republics – Estonian SSR, Latvian SSR, and Lithuanian SSR – held aloft by Mother Russia and the monument was said to have been erected after World War II as a sign of popular gratitude toward the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin for the liberation of the Baltic States. In the middle of 1963, when the issue of demolition was raised again, it was decided that the destruction of a structure of such artistic and historic value, the building of which had been funded by donations of the residents of Latvia, would only cause deep indignation, which in turn would cause tension in society. Over time the misinterpretation of symbolism also was toned down and by 1988 the monument was said, with somewhat more accuracy, to have been built to "celebrate the liberation from bondage of the autocracy of the tsar and German barons", although withholding the fact that the Bolshevik Red Army and the Red Latvian Riflemen were also adversaries in the Latvian War of Independence.

Despite the Soviet government’s efforts, on June 14, 1987, about 5,000 people rallied to commemorate the victims of Soviet deportations. This event, organized by the human rights group Helsinki-86, was the first time after the Soviet occupation that the flower-laying ceremony took place, as the practice was banned by the Soviet authorities. In response the Soviet government organized a bicycle race at the monument at the time when the ceremony was planned to take place. Helsinki-86 organized another flower-laying ceremony on August 23 in the same year to commemorate the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, at which the crowd was dispersed using jets of water. Yet the independence movement grew in size, amounting in some events to more than half a million participants (about one quarter of Latvia's population) and three years later, on May 4, 1990, the re-establishment of the independence of Latvia was declared.

Since the re-establishment of independence the monument has become a focal point for a variety of events. One of these – on March 16, the commemoration day of veterans of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS, who fought the Soviet Union during World War II – has caused controversy. The date was first celebrated by Latvians in exile before being brought to Latvia in 1990 and for a short time (1998–2000) was the official remembrance day. In 1998 the event drew the attention of the foreign mass media and in the following year the Russian government condemned the event as a glorification of Nazism. The event evolved into a political conflict between Latvians and Russians, posing a threat to public safety.

The Latvian government took a number of steps in order to try to bring the situation under control, and in 2006 not only were the events planned by right wing organizations not approved, but the monument was fenced off, according to an announcement by Riga city council, for restoration. The monument was indeed restored in 2006, but this statement was later questioned, as politicians named various other reasons for the change of date, the enclosed area was much larger than needed for restoration, and the weather appeared inappropriate for restoration work. Therefore the government was criticized by the Latvian press for being unable to ensure public safety and freedom of speech. The unapproved events took place despite the ban. On November 23, 2006, the law requiring the approval of the authorities for public gatherings was ruled unconstitutional. In the future years the government mobilized the police force to guard the neighborhood of the monument and the events were relatively peaceful.