Monument «To the sons and daughters of Slovenia from the grieving Motherland»
The monument to Slovenes who died in the First and Second World Wars is located in Victory Park on Poklonnaya Gora. It is made of Slovenian granite in the shape of Mount Triglav — the national symbol of Slovenia and reproduces the Slovenian tradition of erecting monuments of a similar appearance in memory of the fighters of the anti-fascist movement during the Second World War. The monument bears the inscription: “To the sons and daughters of Slovenia from the grieving Motherland”. During the Second World War, many Slovenes of military age were forcibly mobilized into the Wehrmacht, the Italian army, as well as into the “working detachments” of Hortist Hungary. Taking into account the large-scale partisan movement in Slovenia in the Wehrmacht, Slovenes were considered a “problematic contingent”. The voluntary transfer of Slovenes to the side of the Red Army and Soviet partisans became widespread. In 1943, brigades of the People’s Liberation Army of Yugoslavia, formed in the USSR, began to be created in Kolomna from among the captured representatives of the peoples of the former Yugoslavia. Many Slovenes joined these formations. One of the most famous soldiers of the NOAYU brigades was the father of the first President of Slovenia, Milan Kuchan, Kaloman Kuchan, who fell in 1944 on the territory of modern Serbia. A memorial to Slovenes who died in the First and Second World Wars was erected on Poklonnaya Gora on September 10, 2019. The opening ceremony of the monument was attended by Dmitry Medvedev (he was a Prime Minister of the Russian Federation at that moment) and Slovenian Prime Minister Marjan Sharets. The monument was erected on the initiative of the Slovenian leadership and was designed by architect Rok Klanschek. Similar monuments depicting the Slovenian national symbol – Mount Triglav – in memory of the fighters against the anti-fascist movement during the war years are traditional for Slovenia. The inscription “To the sons and daughters of Slovenia from the grieving Motherland” is carved on the granite. Earlier, in 2016, a monument was erected in Ljubljana to “The Sons of Russia and the Soviet Union who died on Slovenian soil during the First and Second World Wars.”
Address: Moscow, Victory Park
