Those Crazy Estonians

January 10, 2007 marked a pivotal day in Estonian history, when the parliament passed a law allowing for the removal of the “Liberating Soviet Soldier” from central Tallinn. Another bill, yet unpassed, would change September 22 – the day when Red Army troops captured the city – from “Tallinn Liberation Day” to a perpetual day of national mourning.

Russia’s Special Representative for Human Rights decried the law, saying it was “lionizing fascism.” Russian International Affairs Committee Chairman Mikhail Margelov went one step further, saying, “The removal of monuments to liberating Soviet soldiers is akin to the Inquisition’s destruction of texts and monuments from the classical antiquity (Jamestown).”

Wow. Just...wow.