Monday, March 19, 2007

Replying to Propaganda


On Friday, Estonia’s London ambassador replied to the propaganda article in the Guardian newspaper by Konstantin Kosachev about Estonia’s role in World War II, and Estonia’s plans to move a war monument from the centre of Tallinn to a cemetery.

Today, a Guardian reader has pointed to the existence of another Tallinn memorial:

There are three memorials in Tallinn which mark not the controversial period
of the second world war for Estonia but Britain’s role in her prewar independence (Letters, March 9).

One is the submarine Lembit, taken by the Soviet navy on the occupation of Estonia in 1940, retired in 1979 and now restored to her 1930s appearance. It is the only British-built submarine of that era preserved afloat anywhere.

A plaque on the city wall near the port, unveiled by Prince Andrew in 1998, commemorates the Royal Navy’s presence in the Baltic in 1918-20, which enabled Estonia and Latvia to declare independence from the Bolshevik USSR.

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