Vasily Kononov has died but we still will see his victory!

Vasily Kononov has died - the person who has much seen for the long life and, certainly, never thought that the presidents will write him and his name will be on the front pages of the most known editions. The person who was at war with fascism and has again entered into the struggle against it after half a century and more after the last volleys of the Great Patriotic War. Today, when he already isn't present near to us, this struggle proceeds and his name still means much in this struggle.

They wrote and told a lot about Vasily Kononov's stories but more and more about the shameful court in Latvia and that has followed it. It is not out of place to remember what the person he was. He was born in the very first day of 1923 in one of the Latvian villages. He helped the parents about the house and in 1940 has entered Komsomol already in the Soviet Latvia. The native land has left together with the divisions of Red Army which receded under the impact of fascist armies. Some months he has spent in Izhevsk in the deep rear where he was trained in a specialty of the member of a demolition squad.

In the summer of 1943 he has been sent to the territory of Latvia. At first became the head of group of the members of a demolition squad and then the commander of partisan detachment of the First Latvian partisan brigade. According to last available information he has personally blown up 14 enemy echelons with ammunition and manpower. After the war he served in militia, was at war with “wood brothers”, has served to the chief of criminal investigation department of militia management of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. Before a transfer to the reserve the colonel Kononov was at the head of the republican department of transport militia. He had 27 state awards. Among them the Lenin's award, the award of the Labour Red Banner and award of the Patriotic war of I degree.

Vasily Kononov's second war with those, who welcome the marches of SS-men, has begun in 1998 when the veteran has been accused of the murder of the civilian population during the war. This history has occurred on May 27, 1944: then the partisans have shot the henchmen of invaders under a command of Kononov in the village Malye Baty. The reason of partisan raid was that as Vasily Kononov told, these people have given out twelve partisans to fascists on February of the same year.

The Latvian justice has found out that “genocide, a crime against humanity” took place and has sentenced Kononov to six years of prison. By then he has been arrested for two years … The sentence, naturally, has been appealed against and the Supreme Court of Latvia has released Vasily Kononov from custody but the case has directed on supplementary examination.
In 2003 one more court exculpated him in war crimes but all the same found the veteran guilty of gangsterism. The persistent veteran didn't surrender and addressed to the European Court of human rights in Strasbourg. In ten years after the beginning of this ugly history the chamber of human rights declares that the decision of Vasily Kononov's criminal prosecution is incompetent. The essence is in the following: it is impossible to condemn the person for fulfillment of any act which wasn't a criminal offense according to the norms of the law in force during that moment. Moreover, the European court also has obliged the authorities of Latvia to pay the indemnification at a rate of 30 thousand euro to the veteran. Vasily Kononov then has declared, “It is recognized that Latvia had no bases to subject me to repression. I have received a definitive sentence. It occupies 45 pages. It is my definitive victory to which I went long eight years. It isn't the subject of any cavils”.

But the veteran of war knew badly the customs of new "democratic" Latvia. He has been assured of the rightness and has disagreed to emigrate to Russia even having obtained the Russian citizenship – he remained to live in the homeland. However, the state Latvia assured of the historical rightness and in January, 2009 it appealed against the European court and the Great Chamber of the European court of human rights is examined it now. And on May, 17th the Great Chamber passed judgment in favor of Latvia: fourteen voices against three.

The reaction was immediate. The estimation to this event was given also by the president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev - the lawyer by education. He has declared, “I do not like to give the estimation to verdicts of courts but I can agree that, as a matter of fact, the revision before the taken place decision is the absolutely politically committed action”.

As a question is basic for many people, so they didn't keep silent. Here, for example, the official reference directed to the European court by the Russian association of immigrants of Great Britain. Its main conclusion is that, “On behalf of the representatives of the Russian-speaking diaspora of Great Britain we call you for the fair decision concerning our compatriot, the hero of the Second World War Vasily Makarovich Kononov”.

The Russians living in Great Britain, explain, “It is obvious that Kononov, as well as thousand civilian citizens desperately protecting the family, the house and the earth from the fascists in partisan groups, couldn't expect in days of war the possibility of qualification of the actions made by them as the international crime”.

And still they remind, “We ask to consider the fact that there were about 165 thousand of the Latvian legionaries at war on the party of the Hitlerites. Also the Latvian SS-men have become famous not for heroic battles with Red army but by the most severe retaliatory operations against the civilian population in Byelorussia, Smolensk and Pskov regions of Russia”.

Meanwhile, the Council of public organizations of the country gathered in Latvia. 64 representatives of 52 organizations urged to reconsider the case of Kononov. They underline the extremely important thought in the reference for today, “Kononov was the ordinary fighter of an Antihitlerite coalition and his condemnation attracts the fault recognition of all fighters of resistance of France, Belgium, Yugoslavia and other countries …

The European Court of Human Rights and Great Chamber exist only thanks to heroism and courage of such people as Kononov, who won a victory in the Second World War and the decisions accepted by the European Court of Human Rights are based on a basis of the decisions of the International Nuremberg tribunal in many respects. The verdict of the Great Chamber strikethrough these decisions in relation to Kononov and opens the road to national judicial instances for their revision”.

The public is public but there is also an official position of the party which has won the case. At last, it has achieved the restoration historical justice as to say and consequently can tell to the world about the victory and about the deep moral superiority. The newspaper “Diena” publishes the material “Moral border”.

In order to understand the logic of people who welcome the marches of SS- men, it is necessary to get acquainted with a fragment from this creation:

“In Europe we were compared, balanced in one morality with the verdict of the European Court of Human Rights which upholds a sentence in force to Kononov, who was condemned in Latvia. Or, maybe, it isn’t so. As the verdict of the European Court of Human Rights points and reaction to it, the moral border between Europe and non-Europe now coincides with the eastern frontier of Latvia.

The modern official Russia doesn't want to get rid of oppression of the past with stupid obstinacy which all tightens it in bog of another's fault and brutality more deeply. Already it is impossible to name it as the Asian rigidity or despotism because many people in Asia have the European relation to human life, advantage, the right, mutual relations of an individual and authority which became one of basic stone of morality.

But the ghost of despot Chingishan wanders across Russia till now who rather well gets on with the younger cousin - a ghost of communism.

The double morality always was and remains a component of thinking of Bolsheviks and their ideological successors till the present day. Having abusing the German fascism, the Soviet communism included a wide spectrum of the fascist sights in the ideology as a matter of fact that the Russian neo-Nazis of various shades have adopted with the breakdown of the USSR. As it affirms, the fascism revives not in Latvia and Estonia but in Russia it is alive and never died”.

In general, everything is as usual. We are Chingishan brutal descendants with double morality and they are the respectable citizens living in originally democratic society.

And what about Vasily Kononov?! In spite of the fact that he had a serious illness, the veteran didn't want to surrender. He has told what will do further in interview to RIA Novosti news agency, “Latvia has deceived the court, Latvia has thrown out a number of materials from the criminal case for a long time. There were the proofs from the state archive of the country and testimonies of the witnesses.
For example, they have wounded the partisan Mikhail Stepanov in my division.

- Do you continue to struggle with Latvia?

- My lawyer Mikhail Joffe is there now (in the court - a comment of editorial staff). He prepares the project of the new decision. We have a right to appeal against this decision and we count on the great support of many heads of Europe. The victories will be ours...

- Are you so assured of it?

This is an attempt to reconsider the decision of the Nuremberg tribunal. Latvia made a bold push for the sacred. They want to expand the possibilities for the census of war history. They want to make the winners as criminals, want to extinguish the warming between Latvia and the Russian Federation and to expand a precipice between the Latvian and Russian people. And even more they want to rehabilitate the nazism. I trust in my victory. I see it already”.

Vasily Kononov hasn't time to win his last fight. But it doesn't mean that “case of Kononov” has ended with his death. No, now it isn’t the case of one person, but it is a matter of a principle for many thousand people! After all it is abundantly clear that it is the question not only of destiny of one person. Actually on the large scale, this is the attempt to reconsider the results of war with far-reaching political conclusions.

Let's look in the reference of the Russians living in Great Britain once again. The conclusion is precisely formulated in it:

“Today the Latvian management tries to cut out again the Second World War history, history of a victory in favor of the Latvian fascism, to bury in oblivion the feats of soldiers of Red army and participants of the Resistance movement. We call you: stop a long-term court over the hero of Resistance Vasily Makarovich Kononov. We are the children, grandsons and great-grandsons of people who have worried the horrors of the Second World War, we trust in a mind and justice victory”.

But simply to trust is little - it is necessary to operate. And certainly the actions will follow. The lawyers of Vasily Kononov have already declared that they will continue the work on reconsideration of the case. And fortiori the errors in the decision of the Great Chamber are found out and it already recognized. For example, it was informed that the helpers of fascists have been burned alive while they have been shot and then their bodies were burned. The defence is ready to present the new data how the group of major Chugunov was lost around the village Malye Baty. We will remind that exactly after that "the civilian population" helping the fascists, have been shot.

Last autumn the Minister of Justice of Russia Alexander Konovalov has declared that in decision of the European Court of Human Rights was maximum of “politics and populism” in relation to the case of Kononov. He has told that absolutely nothing prevents for the Russian Federation to prepare claims for those citizens of Latvia and Estonia who participated in mass executions of the Soviet citizens. There is only one little thing left: it is necessary not only to tell but also to make!