It’s not the USSR anymore, but John Lennon may be back in Russia soon.
Were John Lennon still with us, it’s hard to imagine that the former Beatle would miss the irony in the news, reported by Newsweek today, that a group of fans is pressing to have him memorialized in a statue in Moscow.
The proposal, according to Newsweek, is being driven by a Russian organization of Beatles enthusiasts who have offered to finance the project themselves, but who will require approval from a city board that governs the placement of statues and monuments in the Russian capital.
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A story posted on the website of Russian television station Moscow 24, Lev Lavrenova, an official on the board that reviews such applications, confirmed that the petition for the new statue would be heard next month, according to a story posted on the website of Russian television station Moscow 24, Lev Lavrenova.
“The…group submitted a proposal to install a monument to John Lennon. They are ready to finance the work. In April, the Commission will consider this issue,” Lavrenova said.
Alexey Bogaevsky, the founder of the group sponsoring the statue, told Newsweek that his organization would press for the statue to be located in the Vorobyovy Hills neighborhood, where students mourning Lennon’s assassination in 1980 were dispersed by police.
The news that a statue of a man dedicated to peace might be erected in Moscow comes in the same week that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration warned the government of Denmark that, should that country decide to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s collective missile shield, its ships would become “legitimate targets” for Russian missiles.
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Meanwhile, Russia continues its occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, which it invaded last year, as well as its support for rebels in Eastern Ukraine who are currently locked in a tenuous ceasefire with the Ukrainian military. To the West, leaders of the European Union are considering the formation of a Pan-European army specifically to counter additional Russian aggression.
So will one of the pre-eminent songwriters of his generation take his place beside Peter the Great, Alexander Pushkin, and Yuri Gagarin?
And if so, will it contain any quotations from his work? Perhaps “Give Peace a Chance”? Or maybe, “Happiness Is a Warm Gun?”
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