MOSCOW: Stalingrad, a name that conjures memories both of the Soviet Union\u2019s World War Two sacrifice and the murderous rule of dictator Josef Stalin, is making a comeback.
\nA Russian regional governor has backed a proposal to name the local airport Stalingrad, angering some Russians who say the country should not honour Stalin, who oversaw millions of deaths.
\nIt was not clear if the initiative had the support of the Kremlin, but it would fit in with a pattern under President Vladimir Putin for officials to tap into nostalgia for a period of Soviet rule when the country was a global superpower.
\nAndrei Bocharov, who runs the Volgograd Region in southern Russia, approved a proposal from war veterans to rename the local international airport Stalingrad, though he said \u201cmore work still has to be done on this issue\u201d, his official site said.
\nStalingrad was the name given to Volgograd in 1925 in honour of Stalin. It was changed back to Volgograd in 1961, when Stalin\u2019s successor denounced him.
\nThe city became a symbol of Soviet resistance during World War Two, when the battle of Stalingrad stopped the German advance into the Soviet Union and marked the turning of the tide of war in favour of the Allies.
\nSvetlana Gannushkina, a senior member of Russian human rights group memorial, told Reuters: \u201cAirport Stalingrad is a disgrace. It would imply justifying Stalin\u2019s repressions, which is inadmissible.
\n\u201cI am overwhelmed with sadness, because we are returning to our past; we do not remember those pages of our history that we should be proud of, but rather the most shameful ones; we restore the names which indeed must be remembered \u2014 but remembered as villains.\u201d
\nLegacyThe way Russia views Stalin\u2019s legacy has gone through several shifts since he died in 1953.
\nIn 1961, Nikita Khruschev, who took over as Soviet leader after Stalin\u2019s death, had his preserved body removed from the Red Square mausoleum, where it lay alongside Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, and ordered that Stalingrad be renamed Volgograd.
\nA loosening of political restrictions in the 1980s allowed Russians for the first time to freely discuss the millions of people who died during his forced collectivisation of farmers and his bloody purges of the 1930s.
\nBy the time the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, most Russians viewed Stalin as an odious figure.
\nThat changed as many Russians grew disenchanted with capitalist Russia, lamenting the gap that emerged between rich and poor, a collapse in public order, and a decline in Russia\u2019s standing in the world.
\nMore people began to see Stalin as an efficient manager who implemented an industrialisation drive that transformed a peasant nation into a nuclear superpower, and as a national leader who defeated Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW: Stalingrad, a name that conjures memories both of the Soviet Union\u2019s World War Two sacrifice and the murderous rule of dictator Josef Stalin, is making a comeback. A Russian regional governor has backed a proposal to name the local airport Stalingrad, angering some Russians who say the country should not honour Stalin, who oversaw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n