&host=rt.com&uri=/art-and-culture/news/street-artist-desecrates-monument-red-army-bulgaria/&via=(none)&ua=CCBot/1.0 (+http://www.commoncrawl.org/bot.html))
Street artist turns Red Army soldiers into Superman and Santa
Published: 19 June, 2011, 14:07
A man poses with painted figures on the monument of the Soviet Army in central Sofia on June 17, 2011 (AFP Photo / Nikolay Doychinov)
TAGS: Conflict, Crime, Russia, Europe, History, Culture, WWII
An unknown Bulgarian street artist has desecrated a monument to soldiers of the Red Army in Sofia Saturday night, Agence France Presse reports. Heroes immortalized in bronze for fighting fascism were turned into painted mass-culture characters.
Soviet soldiers represented on the bronze bas-relief gained costumes of Superman, Santa Claus armed with a Shpagin pistol-machine gun, Captain America, famous for the feats against communists, Ronald McDonald, the clown-mascot of the world’s biggest fast-food chain, and Robin and the Joker, the sidekick and the arch-villain respectively of the famous comic and film character Batman.
According to AFP, the unknown artist got in the eye of CCTV cameras in the course of his work. If caught by police, the criminal-artist will face a fine of about 2,500 euros.
The monument to the soldiers of the Red Army in Sofia was installed in 1954. The opening was dated for the tenth anniversary of the liberation of Bulgaria. Bulgaria entered World War II in 1941 as a member of the Axis powers, but declined to participate in Operation Barbarossa and saved its Jewish population from concentration camps. In September 1944, the Communist-dominated Fatherland Front came to power after a series of strikes and unrest. It put an end to the alliance with Nazi Germany and made Bulgaria join the anti-German coalition until the end of the war.
18.06.2011, 15:00
2 comments
Lion-tamer does the trick – horse act sets Guinness recordOne of the legendary Russian lion-taming brothers, Edgar Zapashny, has performed a trick for the Guinness Book of Records in the arena of the Sochi Circus. |
20.06.2011, 12:37
Armenian rock legends back togetherThe living example of how friendship and nationality-based connections within the Armenian Diaspora of LA have transformed into a major international success on the musical stage is set to perform live in the Russian capital. |
Man..pathetic....The Bulgarians have switch sides so fast and so many times they're completely confused....So now they're kissing NATO butt...Not much different from the Soviet butt before that...& Nazi butt before that..etc..etc..
Rather than vandalizing this sculpture, it would be more appropriate to have the Sofia community discuss a new way to interpret their history - and to build monuments appropriate for that. A tribute to the Soviet Red Army is not necessarily a tribute to Stalin. Many websites seem to think that the vandalism was a piece of high-street art by the "Banksy of Bulgaria". No - and I would feel the same way if somebody was to desecrate our Canadian war sculpture in Ottawa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:War_Memorial_Guards_Ottawa.jpg