The statue was unveiled during the Soviet Victory Day celebrations on 9 May 1980, and intended to commemorate Marshal Ivan Stepanovich Konev, who was one of several commanders of Red Army troops that captured Prague from the hands of the Germans near to the end of World War II.

[2][3] After the fall of the communist regime in 1989 and the Czech transition to a democratic government, it became a subject of frequent vandalism, particularly on the anniversary of the Prague Spring, a revolution that was put down by invading Soviet forces.

The move proved to be controversial, as within days the tarpaulin covering the monument had been torn down three times; two individuals, described by Czech media as "pro-Russian activists", were detained by the police.

[25][4] In June 2020, during an arts and landscape festival in Prague, 12 small temporary statues of Ivan Konev were unveiled, painted to look like figures such as Batman, Superman, the Joker, and Adolf Hitler.

[26] For thirty days in December 2022, the plinth was occupied by Ahriman the Demon, a statue created at an international convention of blacksmiths, depicting Vladimir Putin as a goblin wielding a gas tap and making a Nazi salute.