Respect for the dead 对逝者的尊重

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欧洲视角

Respect for the dead
对逝者的尊重

Jan 7th 2010
From Economist.com

The messy politics of war memorials

战争纪念碑后肮脏的政治

WAR cemeteries are poignant places, better suited for reflection than controversy. In Vilnius, Poles, Lithuanians, Russians and others, all fierce foes in their day, rest in the same hallowed ground. In the British war cemetery in Berlin, aircrews lie in the earth that their bombs once churned. In Bitola in Macedonia, a huge German war memorial-cum-cemetery dating from the first world war glowers over the town from a nearby hill. Rebecca West, a Germanophobe British writer of the interwar period, called it “monstrous”. Local authorities have been more generous-spirited, leaving it untouched for nearly 90 years.

战争公墓是令人心酸之处，更适合人们去反思而不是争辩。在维尔纽斯（立陶宛首都），波兰人、立陶宛人、俄罗斯人等都曾兵戎相见水火不容，但现在都长眠在同一块圣地。在柏林的英国战争公墓，机组人员安息在他们曾掷下炸弹的土地上。在马其顿的比托拉，一个可追溯到一战时期的巨大的德国战争纪念公墓从山上虎视眈眈的注视着临近的村庄。Rebeca West (英国作家，活跃在两次世界大战期间，仇视德国)形容它“怪兽般的”。当地政府则更加宽宏大量，放任其存在了近90年。

Some war memorials make no political statement. The Thiepval Memorial on the Somme, designed by Edwin Lutyens, bears the names of 72,000 fallen British soldiers from the 1914-18 war. It does not try to say anything about the origins of the war or who won it. British memorials usually bear an epitaph on the lines of this: “When you go home, tell them of us and say, ‘for their tomorrow, we gave our today’.” That may strike the modern eye as a bit maudlin, but nobody could find it offensive.

一些战争纪念碑没有留下任何政治性的描述。坐落在索姆的Thiepval纪念碑由埃德温.鲁琴斯爵士设计，那里记住了72，000名一战时期在索姆河战役中阵亡的英国士兵。墓碑并没有写战争的起因以及结果。英国墓碑的墓志铭上通常有这样一句话：当你回家时，请告诉人们关于我们的故事“我们牺牲了自身的时日，换来了他们的未来”这行催泪的文字也许会给现代人以震撼，但没有人觉得他们这样写令人不悦。

The Soviet war memorials in Vienna and Berlin, in contrast, are built in the hearts of each city with demonstrative and meticulous attention to Stalinist iconography and cliché. “Eternal Glory to the Heroes of the Red Army, fallen in the fight against the German-fascist invaders for the freedom and independence of Europe” reads the inscription on the Viennese one, in Schwarzenbergplatz.

维也纳和柏林的苏维埃战争纪念馆建在城市的中心地区，并且公开并谨慎地在这些斯大林主义者的肖像和陈词滥调上下了很大功夫。维也纳纪念馆上的题词如是写道：“为了欧洲的自由和独立而与德国法西斯侵略者抗争中阵亡的红军战士们，我们授予这些英雄以永恒的荣耀”

Given what actually happened in the Soviet-occupied part of Europe after 1945, views may differ on the merits of that inscription. Some Austrians, ungratefully, nicknamed it the “Looter’s memorial” or the “Unknown rapist”. Some have tried to blow it up or otherwise vandalise it. But it is protected by law, dating from the 1955 treaty in which Austria regained its independence from the liberator-occupiers.

有鉴于1945年后在欧洲的苏维埃占领区发生的事实，一些评论对纪念馆的题词颇有微词。一些奥地利人不仅不心怀感激，并且将它称之为“侵略者的纪念馆”或者“不为人知的强奸犯”。还有一些人一度尝试将其炸毁或者破坏。但是根据1955年签订的合约，奥地利从驻欧苏军手中接管本国主权的同时，这个纪念馆也被该条约所保护。

ReutersObliterating history in Georgia
When the Soviet Union collapsed, the former Soviet republics were under no such legal requirement to preserve or protect war memorials. That gives them more freedom of manoeuvre, though whether they use it wisely is another matter. In 2007 Estonia abruptly moved a Soviet war memorial from a conspicuous position in the centre of Tallinn to the military cemetery on the capital’s outskirts, provoking riots among local Russians who saw the move as blasphemy towards past generations’ sacrifice and heroism. Though the government’s tactics and timing were indeed questionable, the motivation was understandable—for Estonians the statue epitomised their country’s 50-year occupation, during which its own military memorials had been obliterated.

当苏联解体时，前苏联共和国并没有以法律的形式提出保护战争纪念馆的要求，这一点为他国留下了一个操作的空间，但是他们能否高明的加以利用在所不论。2007年，爱沙尼亚毫无预兆的将原先坐落在首都塔林显眼位置的战争纪念馆移到其周边的战争公墓附近，这一举措引发了当地俄国人的暴动，他们视这次的迁移为对先代战士的牺牲与其英雄精神的亵渎。尽管政府对于时机的与手段的选择有待商榷，但其动机却是可以理解的——（战争纪念馆的）雕像是爱沙尼亚被苏联占领50年的一个缩影，在其统治期间，其本国的军事纪念馆一度被抹杀。

In December Georgia took things a step further when it demolished a colossal 46m-high Soviet war memorial in , the country’s second city. Bungled use of explosives killed two bystanders, a mother and child. The official, somewhat contradictory, explanation was that the monument needed restoration and in any case stood on a site needed for a new building to house the country’s parliament.

当年的12月，格鲁吉亚则更加激进的夷平了坐落在库塔伊西（格第二大城市）的一个巨大的46米高的苏维埃战争纪念，因为使用炸药不慎还误伤了两个路人致死，一个母亲一个孩子。官方的解释似乎有些自相矛盾，他们说纪念碑需要重建并且他的旧址需要用来为议会建造一个新建筑。

It is easy to see why Soviet monuments are resented in places that see themselves as former captive nations of the evil empire. Railing against them may win votes. But vindictiveness is not a good policy. Relocating monuments to neutral locations, preferably with proper consultation, no haste, and all due decency, is one thing. Cheerfully destroying them is another.

苏维埃纪念碑被视为前统治国家的邪恶标志而被仇视的原因是显而易见的。反对它们的存在会赢得人民的支持，但是以牙还牙并不是一个好方法。将纪念碑迁到对其保持中立态度的地方，最好合时宜的进行洽谈，勿操之过急，这样所有的事情都会合乎礼仪，这是一种结果。但是欢喜鼓舞的将其摧毁则完全是另一种结果。

Respecting different approaches to the past is a hallmark of a free plural society just as forcibly rewriting it is a hallmark of totalitarianism. That does not make monuments sacrosanct (you will search in vain for a German military cemetery with a swastika). But the dead deserve to be treated with respect, however flawed or horrible the cause in which they died.

如何对待过去是每个自由国度固有的权利，而不应被干涉，正如在一个极权国家被强制重写稿件也是天经地义的。这并不会使纪念碑变得神圣不可侵犯（如果你在德国军队公墓中寻找卍字绝对是徒劳）。但是但凡逝者均应当受到尊敬，无论他们死于怎样的或令人毛骨悚然或罪恶的原因。