Russian Foreign Ministry called the statements of the leadership of Gdansk Museum of Second World War nationalistic, on the verge of racism. This is how the department commented on the case with the Dark is the Night song.
It should be recalled that the song was declared “Bolshevik” in Poland. The Director of the museum in Gdansk has forbidden to perform it during the Museum Night international action, held on May 18th. He called the song "bolshevik", which is supposedly "forbidden to perform".
The management of the museum did not stop there and made an official statement, which contained insults to the soldiers to whom the song is dedicated.
The song was called propaganda; the artists' performance was “a staged political provocation”. It should be noted that over the past few years almost all objective materials that reveal the role of the Soviet Union in defeating Nazism have disappeared from the museum exposition.
A beautiful, lyrical love song was written in 1943. It sounded in Two Fighters movie for the first time, and immediately became extremely popular. The work of Nikita Bogoslovsky and Vladimir Agatov was loved by the listeners even after the end of the Great Patriotic War. It sounded in Polish - famous poet Julian Tuvim translated it into his native language in the 1950s. The song was performed by many Polish soloists and creative groups.
According to musician Peter Kosevsky, their group was going to perform several songs of the war years. Expressing hope for the unifying force of art, he added that he wanted to recall the terrible tragedy of those years and reflect on what we can do so that it does not happen again.
The incident in the museum fits into the policy pursued by official Warsaw, aimed at dehumanizing 600 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers who died for the freedom of the Polish people from fascism, they say in the Foreign Ministry.
For many years, anti-Russian circles in Poland are fighting against the fallen, destroying memorials to Soviet soldiers. Now they do this with the songs and poems.
It is important that many Poles condemned the wild deed of the museum director, and thanks to a public response, a wide audience learned about the song, Russian Foreign Ministry summed up.
Russkiy Mir
