Abstrakt
The Konev controversy has taken place in a divided society where the supporters of the opposition, with their stronghold in Prague, see the government as pro-Russian and ex-communist. It was likely further stimulated by the opposition's fear that the anti-communist consensus of the earlier decades was starting to erode and by a growing concern surrounding the Russian Federation's aggressive foreign policy towards neighbouring countries.
The statue's removal from its prominent place in the centre of Prague, in a way, epitomizes the discontinuance of a previously existing informal agreement to separate the commemoration of the Red Army from the wider, more aggressively anti-communist memory politics. The controversy also confirms that the communist past is still a relatively important topic amongst the Czech public.
It seems that anti-communist rhetoric is a recognizable, mobilizing force - at least, for some parts of society - and a tool that can be used against the government to help the (otherwise ideologically rather heterogeneous) opposition to find common ground. It would be interesting to further trace the form of this contemporary (now oppositional) anti-communism that, as we have seen, does not always have to be liberal or pro-European.