Press Release, 22.06.2024

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

On the night of 21-22 June, when 83 years ago Hitler invaded the USSR, Nikolai Rybakov, Grigory Yavlinsky and other party members lit candles and laid flowers at the Requiem 1941 monument in the centre of Moscow. This is a traditional Yabloko’s anti-war action that has been taking place for many years already.

The monument represents five bronze figures of school students – volunteers, who went to war, and a bronze plaque with the names of students and teachers of school No. 110 who did not return from the war. Sculptor Daniel Mitlyansky depicted the figures of his classmates who were killed: Yuri Divilkovsky, Igor Kuptsov, Grigory Rodin and Gabor Raab, as well as school student Igor Bogushevsky. After finishing the 9th grade, at the age of 16-17, all of them went to the front along with their class teacher Ivan Kuzmin and died in the war.

Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Daniel Mitlyansky said “They, of course, did not stand together in the same formation, it was I who gathered them in one formation… I made the sculpture not as a monument, but as a requiem for them.” On the base of the monument is carved: “Be worthy of the memory of the fallen”.

During the action, Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov read out loud the words of the will of 17-year-old Yuri Divilkovsky, which he wrote before leaving for the front in March 1942, in 2021 it was published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta:

“And today I ask you to think about the words of this boy, this young man who gave his life for us:

“…Please from time to time remember me, who was the man of the future. A true citizen of the future is one who is free from prejudices and conventions, who is not afraid of himself and is not afraid that anyone will not understand him; who places the wonderful feeling of love and the joy of free creativity above all else in life. I died so that humanity could be like this.”

Pass on these words, repeat them. This is what they gave their lives for,” Rybakov noted.

Since 2007, members and supporters of Yabloko have traditionally conduct their anti-war action: lit candles and laid flowers on this day at the “1941” memorial plaque in Victory Park on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow. This year, due to the government event taking place there, it was decided to change the format of the Yabloko’s traditional action.