City renames itself Stalingrad to mark battle

World War II Russian Military
#1


MOSCOW (AP) — The southern Russian city where the Red Army decisively turned back Nazi forces in a key World War II battle will once again be known as Stalingrad, at least on the days commemorating the victory.

The city was renamed Volgograd in 1961 as part of the Soviet Union’s rejection of dictator Joseph Stalin’s personality cult. But the name Stalingrad is inseparable with the battle, in which at least 1.25 million people died.

Russia on Saturday plans extensive ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary of the battle’s end.

The Volgograd city council passed a measure Thursday to use the name Stalingrad in city statements on the commemoration day, on Russia’s May 9 Victory Day and on four other days connected with the battle, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The AP

#2

Zarizyn, Stalingrad, Volgograd, now Stalingrad again. Maybe this is a step towards the town’s future name of Putingrad? (I’d put a smiley in here now if the option would work…)

#3

I’m rereading Beevor’s Stalingrad now. God, what a horrific battle for both sides…

#4

I’m crossing some linguistic borders here, but so far as Putin is concerned it might be more appropriate to name any city after him as Putagrad.

Puta

The word puta means ‘prostitute’ or ‘whore’ in Spanish, but it has stronger connotations than the equivalent in English does. It also combines to form some common and potentially offensive phrases, so it’s a word you must know if you’re going to master Spanish.

For cultural reasons puta can be a very offensive word, though of course its register depends on how and with whom you use it. The Real Academia Española gives the following definitions for this word:

(De or. inc.).
1. f. prostituta.
puto, ta. (De puta).
1. adj. U. como calificación denigratoria.
2. adj. Por antífrasis puede resultar encarecedor.
3. adj. necio
4. m. Hombre que tiene concúbito con persona de su sexo.

Puta by itself can be used as a curse to express frustration, anger, or surprise, much as ‘damn’, ‘shit’, or ‘bloody hell’ are used in English (pick your phrase based on what part of the English-speaking world you are from).

Puta appears in a couple of very common imprecations or interjections of surprise or frustration which you’ll hear particularly from men, though women also use them.

• ¡Hijo de puta! (Son of a bitch!)

• ¡Puta madre! (Mother****er! **** off!)

Note that although both these expressions can be used among friends without causing offense, they are otherwise very vulgar and offensive. Don’t use them unless you are absolutely certain of the people you are with, and even then be careful.

It is also used in several different ways. It can be used in its adjectival form and inserted with other words as an intensifier.

• Me quedé en la puta calle. (I got stuck in the damn street.)

• Ha vuelto a ganar. ¡Qué puta suerte tiene! (He won. He’s so damn/****ing lucky!)

• No me hizo ni puto caso. (She totally/completely ignored me.)

• ¡Ni puta idea! (I’ve got no ****ing/bloody idea!)

There are also several common idioms using puta, in particular ‘de puta madre’, which can be both very positive or negative, as shown below.

• cocina de puta madre (a damn great cook)

• comida de puta madre (****ing lousy food)

Intonation and context will make clear whether a positive or negative connotation is meant, as happens in English when we use such expressions.

In more polite speech, the euphemism ‘pucha’ is used, much in the way people replace ‘****ing’ with ‘frikking’ and ‘damn’ with ‘darn’.

As with all curses, be very careful when using any form of puta. Even native speakers can cause offense, so non-natives are usually better off just avoiding them. But ‘puta’ and its accompanying idioms are so common that you have to know them.
http://www.languagerealm.com/spanish/puta.php

The quote refers only to Putin, not the city or its people.

#5

By ALEXANDER ZEMLIANICHENKO | Associated Press – 39 mins ago

FILE - In this early 1943 photo, captured German soldiers, their uniforms tattered from the battle, make their way in the bitter cold through the ruins of Stalingrad, Russia. On Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013, Russia marks the 70th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, considered a turning point in World War II. (AP Photo/hpr, File)

VOLGOGRAD, Russia (AP) — An aged T-34 tank clattered into the center of the southern Russian city once known as Stalingrad and soldiers dressed in World War II-era uniforms marched solemnly as Russia marked the 70th anniversary of the end of one of modern warfare’s bloodiest battles.

President Vladimir Putin came to the city later Saturday to take part in the commemorations, including a visit to the famous hilltop memorial complex surmounted by a towering 87-meter (280-foot) statue of a sword-wielding woman representing the motherland.

“Stalingrad will forever remain a symbol of unity and invincibility of our people, a symbol of genuine patriotism, a symbol of the greatest victory of the Soviet liberator soldier. And as long as we are devoted to Russia, our language, culture, roots and national memory, Russia will be invincible,” Putin said at an evening commemorative concert.

The city 900 kilometers (560 miles) south of Moscow suffered six months of intensive fighting, beginning with massive air strikes, as Nazi forces tried to push deep into the Soviet Union and reach its Caucasus oil fields.

At least 1.2 million people are estimated to have died before the fighting ended on Feb. 2, 1943. The Red Army’s defeat of the Nazis after house-to-house battling was a decisive turn in World War II.

One of the houses became a particularly resonant symbol of the battle. The four-story apartment building became known as the Pavlov House after the sergeant whose platoon inflicted heavy damage on Nazi troops and tanks while under heavy attack for two months, even as civilians continued to occupy it.

A woman born in the house a couple of months before the siege, Zinaida Andreeva, told the Interfax news agency Saturday that “for me, Feb. 2 is like a birthday. It’s a special day, in which tears and happiness are side by side.”

The city was renamed Volgograd in 1961, as part of the Khrushchev era’s drive to erase the personality cult of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. But the name Stalingrad is indelibly connected with the battle that is one of Russia’s most-lauded military achievements.

The connection is so strong that the city council this week passed a resolution under which it would use the name Stalingrad in official communiques on the day commemorating the battle’s end, as well as five other days marking World War II events.

The legacy of Stalin remains a delicate issue nearly 60 years after his death. Although widely reviled for his decades of brutality and repression, many laud him as leading the people to victory against Nazi Germany amid immense suffering.

In a controversial move, Stalin’s image adorns five buses that are to run in Volograd until Russia observes Victory Day on May 9, and similar buses were to run Saturday in St. Petersburg and Chita.

The leader of the liberal Yabloko party’s faction in the St. Petersburg city council, Georgy Poltavchenko, denounced the Stalin buses.

“The victory in the Great Patriotic War” as Russians call WWII " including the victory in the battle on the Volga, was not achieved thanks to the ‘military genius’ of Stalin … but thanks to the heroic resistance of our people," he was quoted by Interfax as saying.

Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report

Yahoo Link

#6

Hello dudes.
Nice to meet you all .Yes ,actualy the Stalingrad seems migh appear on the map again. It’s just politic, not Putinism.
Putin want to get back an importtain propogandic and ideological symbol of NATION UNITY in 20 century - the Stalingrad Battle. For Russia this even isn’t jut another one military battle of ww2 like for yankees the Batle of Okinava say. This is a entire epoch of hard nation’s survival.
Do not worry about return of stalinism!!! This is just a pay for memory of almost 1,5 millions of peoples who died here on both sides…

#7

Again?!!!Wanna know Beevor by heart?:slight_smile:
Hardly the battle was more horrific then the Battle of Bataan. The scale of forces, involved in , was horrific and …general Frost of course. But , honestly hardly it was better then tropic diseases.

#8

Why not? Finally under Putin Russia has won a 5-day’s war with baban Georgia in :slight_smile:

#9

Which “military genius…” , is he crazy!!!:mrgreen:)
If to believe Beevor the Russian army needs only enough vodka and sexual stimulator-posters with german females to be determined for hard battle. The military management is not a critical option!!! .That’s very enough to conquer the half-of europe.

#10

The above quote didn’t come from Beevor’s book that I know of. It should also be mentioned that a segment in Germany is as offended by Beevor’s Stalingrad as many Russians are with The Fall of Berlin. Beevor writes extensively about the efforts of Yeremenko, Chuikov, Rodimtsev, Zhukov, and Khrushchev. Stalin receives much blame for his blunders during the eve of Barabrossa. But he does get grudging credit for his harsh “Not One Step Backward” policies, which prevented the collapse of Soviet forces under heavy pressure from Paulus’ Sixth Army…

#11

I dislike Beevor not for insulting things about logy russian comand stuff ( he know a little about endeed) but for “details” which been invented by him in BOTH of his last books.He is MORE writer/novelist then the historian.Yes the reading is fascinating but when he critisize the germans or soviets - he obviously forgetting about “success” of own british roayl army in early stage of war. It make fun for westerners to read about foolish russians or germans , but if to read about say defence of Singapoor - the things stand upside down:)The idiocy of British command were outstanding even for soviet standards.Why then not the write a next book about “asiatic catastrophe of Britain” for Beevor if he pose himself like historian? Obviously HE is not …And what sense to write a books about mass rapings of German by “mongol horde” civils when the OWN british authorities has sanctioned bomber-henocide of SAME civils - it getting quite ridiculous!!
The criticism loks interesting when its not about your ***!!!

#12

Beevor was actually somewhat critical of the overall performance of the British Army in WWII I believe, in his book on D-Day, lodging the typical criticisms that they seemed to lack the more aggressive nature of the BA in WWI and because of the large number or better educated and motivated personnel by the Royal Air Force, IIRC…

#13

British historians are the worst critics of Britain’s diplomacy and military involvement in both the Great War and WW2.

They back away from critiques of the Allied Bomber Offensive, in part because they began by dropping LEAFLETS warning people that more was to come, and then spent 2 years trying to knock out only industrial targets and failing, with their own military reports telling them the campaign, as it was being fought, was a gigantic waste of time and resources, not to mention bomber crew and aircraft.

You change what you are doing when it isn’t working.

The Luftwaffe had no compunction indescriminately bombing whole cities and towns, so why should those lack of rules somehow apply to their cities and industry as well?

That bomber offensive was a success. Much German effort expended to move whole production facilities away from the bombs. Fighting a total war, however, means that any civilian contractor working for the military to supply goods and services can be judged as a ‘legit’ target.

And when you factor in morale considerations, it means that every family with a serving member in the German armed forces is contributing moral succor to the enemy.

the logic is simple and indescibabeably cold, but it worked. The German peopl had quite enough of being bombed even before Overlord. they had also had enough of continual and fatuous promises that something could be done about it to stop the bombs falling while the war was still in motion.

Once surrender was achieved, the bombs stopped…simple as that.

You can go on for decades about war crimes, but it’s against a background of internal wrangling by the allied air force commanders about the correct methods being applied to achieve the stated result of getting the German people to the stage where they felt that the National socialist government and all that went with it was no longer a great idea.

War over. German people still complaining. We could complain too, but why bother? Let us go forward rather than looking back to war crimes trials for people in absebtia. there were many Nazi helpers that were not De Nazified after the war, and went on to sterling careers in Germany, or bringing up families. Their victims did not ever have this privelage, so why bother complaining.

the damned war is OVER. Germany is once again an industrial power of great worth, and a porosperous country without having to physically occupy and enslave europe at the same time, or turn russian and slavic people back into pre-Tsarist serfs, working the land for pittance while their German overlords live the good life.

Stuff complaints about the bomber Offensive where they fit.

No Soviets ever put on trial for war crimes either. They did enough internal purging to satiate anyone’s bloodlust. Virtually every Red Army prisoner captured by the Axis was taken to task when they got home as a perpetrator of the soviet law system, forbidding them to be captured alive, or to leave the soviet union without official permission. thats enough trial and executuion for anyone.

forget it. It’s over. Work on becoming a better eurpoe because of it.

and don’t ever forget.

#14

Back onto topic, changes in the official name of the place do not change the past history of the location. Maybe the russians should stop trying to change history to suit present circumstances and embrace their past for what it was.

They are, as a group, still ruled by autocratic tyrants. Until they rise up again and fix this, it will always be so.

Britiain had to go through a long process of internal soul searching, with internal wars aplenty, and velvet revolutions for social change. the process is ongoing.

I urge all russian people to see history not as a static element, but as a dynaic process that forever changes future outcomes.

What did Orwell say…“Who Controls The Past Controls the future”

Russia should take control back of it’s own past, and start worrying about future outcomes, rather than going round in circles and trading one tyrant for another ad nauseum.

when they achieve this, their people may, for the first time in their long history, have a genuine ‘say’ in their own future.

for the present, the Putin monster looks very much like the Khrushchiev monster, who, despite one Party congress after another condemning it, looked much like the stalin monster, who looked very much like the Lenin intellectual without any of Lenin’s intellect,

they in turn changed not very much from their Tsarist past in terms of repression of their own people. Worse in many areas.

all the name changes and window dressing in the world are not going to change that. russia NEEDS another February Revolution. not to be hijacked by bolshevik intellectuals this time.

#15

Worth bearing in mind that “democracee” is a very particular phenomenon, based in the end on about 900 years of British history (and 200 years of French), subsequently seeded in Britain’s (and France’s) colonies. There is nothing “natural” about it. Expecting countries like Russia, whose long-established state is one of tyranny, to somehow become “democratic” overnight is fatuous to say the least. And that is not to mention the likes of I-raq and Syria …

What we describe as “democracy” is under severe threat, that is, if it is not already substantially dead. The threats are not always obvious. For example, the European Union (EU), which trumpets its status as a bulwark of democracy, is in fact a “consultative bureaucracy”, in which the views of large Member States are dominant, and in which the views of smaller (actually lesser) Member States have little influence against the weight of the behemoth. Witness the recent treatment of Greece, or even by the somewhat earlier treatment of Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Perhaps the best we can hope for - in the US, in Europe and in many other regions - is a form of more-or-less beneficent “consultative bureaucracy”. But how long will “beneficence” last ? Answer, I suppose, on a postcard - but I am not too hopeful … Yours from the Dungeons, JR.

#16

Russia now is in the same situation in which was the France in the time of the Restoration - remember ritual curses upon the Revolution and the “Corsican monster”,they are strongly reminiscent of a modern anti-Stalinism, are not they? . The era of revolutions and counter-revolutions in Russia is not over, so the final assessment of the Russian Revolution and its leaders is a matter for the future. Stalingrad certainly will be Stalingrad because the city has become known worldwide just under this name.

As for your praise of democracy - democracy has never been a power of the people, any democracy is only the way of organisation of the ruling class. Democracy in the Greek city-states was only for free men and had nothing to do with the majority - the slaves-helots. Helots in the Greek polis was 9/10 of population. The same was true for the medieval feudal republic like Novgorod or Genoa. Democracy there existed only for the elite, but not for serfs.

Therefore, bourgeois democracy is only a political influence proportional to the size of capital.

#17

Bakunin was right … Do we know this Comrade ? Yours from Beria’s Basement, JR.

#18

Not sure, but some one seems a bit more Nordic than Russkie, at least according to location…

#19

I am well aware, my friends, that modern democratic forms are a sham.

But better a sham in some areas and a success in others rather than a failure right across the board.
I will ask one thing though. Do you think for a moment that the Soviet union could have survived “Barbarossa” and its variants without resort to tyranny?

Could a democratic Russia have been internally strong enough to take all the big hits without going down for the count, as France did, defeated in the morale perspective?

Many modern russians are asking themselves this exact question. They look at the excesses of the stlain regime in this light. Do we have a right to call their view on this matter incorrect? Was Stalinism absolutely necessary for the survival ofthe soviet union as a political entity, and therefore, the survival of a partially ‘free’ slavic society?

National Socialism’s plan for them was horrific. No alternative at all.

Was Josef Stalin necessary for Russian survival?

#20

Indeed ! The Soviet Postal service at its usual best. (Do I hear the lilting strains of the Internationale ? )