In riposte to the Warsaw city authorities announcement that they will name a roundabout after fallen Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev, Moscow has announced plans to rename a street after one Mikhail Muravyov.
General Muravyov is known as 'the hangman' who reaped revenge on the Poles after the 1863 Uprising against Russian occupation.
The street chosen will adjoin the Polish Embassy in Moscow, a factor which is likely to be more than a little uncongenial for the Polish authorities .
Yesterday, Vladimir Platonov, speaker of the Moscow Duma, signed a statement with Mayor Yurl Luzhkov rejecting Warsaw's tribute to the Chechen leader as 'an unfriendly gesture and open provocation.'
The Russians hope that the Polish government will now exert pressure on the Warsaw city authorities to abandon their plans to christen the roundabout in the Chechen's honour.
During the communist era, a well known joke captured the uneasy relationship between Poland and Russia. A son asks his father whether Russia is a friend or a brother. 'A brother' the father replies, 'as you can choose your friends'.
Polish distrust of the Russians stretches back many centuries: it was the Russians who initially led the partition of Poland during the eighteenth century. The so-called Katyn forest massacre, in which over 20,000 Polish officers were murdered by Soviet agents during the Second World War, remains one of many emotive issues. The Russian government only admitted the crime in 1990, and this week the Polish government launched a further petition for the release of all Soviet files relating to the case. Russia had previously promised to release only a third of the files.
Polish sympathy for the Chechens is widespread. However, few Poles would deny that they are not relishing their new found freedom to cock a snoop at their former overlords. At the time of going to press, the Poles have not responded to the Russians street proposal.
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