Victims of Lenin’s 1921 Povolzhye famine in Russia
Humble Memorials For Stalin’s Victims In Moscow -- Masha Lipman, New Yorker
On Wednesday afternoon, a group of Russia’s leading architects and graphic designers gathered with civic activists, historians, and journalists for an improvised party at the offices of Memorial, Russia’s leading human-rights organization. Memorial, whose main cause is the commemoration of victims of the Soviet Union’s Communist regime, has long been under pressure from Putin’s government, but this crowd of about twenty people was cheerfully celebrating an improbable joint achievement.
That day, several tiny plaques commemorating Muscovites who were executed by the regime of Joseph Stalin were erected on buildings where the men and women had lived before Stalin’s security police took them away to be shot, after weeks or months of interrogations and torture. During the years of the Great Terror, mostly from 1936 to 1938, at least thirty thousand people were executed in Moscow alone. Memorial’s archives have confirmed the addresses of about twelve thousand Muscovites who were shot.
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My Comment: I have mentioned this story before in this blog, but one of the memories that I have of my father's best friend is the story that he told me on what happened to his parents when "they" came to take them away. They were living in Moscow at the time, and in the morning a bunch of plains clothed men came to their apartment to arrest his parents. He does not remember his father, but he does remember the look that his mother gave to him when she hugged him to say goodbye. Even though he was young at the time .... he knew that this was the last time that he was ever going to see them again. They took them away and he stayed in that apartment .... alone .... until night time when his uncle came by to take him away. As he told me .... he will never forget the look that his mother gave him that day.
Everyone in Russia and in the former Soviet Union has a story like this .... everyone suffered .... everyone knows the truth of Communism, Stalin, etc. .... everyone .... even Putin. But for reasons that are very hard for foreigners to understand .... in Russia it is a taboo to discuss our past in such a way because the belief is that it will be exploited by those who oppose Russia ... or more to the point .... be used to show how weak Russia has become. I disagree with this mindset .... but I am a minority in this regard. Russians believe that the mistakes of Russia in the past must be kept within the Russian family, and that no one outside can point (as an example to a landmark or memorial) to the errors of our past.
But I am optimistic that one day there will be a memorial to all of these victims .... and that they will be recognized and remembered for all time. But it will take time.
On a personal note .... regular readers of this blog know that I have a condo in Moscow. I bought it with my dad during the turmoil of the early 1990s when the government was liquidating properties .... and everything was being sold cheap. It is located a few blocks away from Red Square .... it is a spacious 3 bedroom 2400 sq. ft. apartment on the top floor with great views of the city and its landmarks. And surprise surprise (especially to me) .... it is now one of the "in places" to live in Moscow .... like living in New York's Trump Tower (I guess). Moscow has certainly changed in the past two decades .... it has some of the priciest reals estate in the world, and no surprise .... in the past few years I have been offered some jaw-dropping deals for my apartment.
But I cannot sell .... and as long as I am alive I will never sell .... because it is the apartment that my father's best friend of 50 years grew up in .... and where he said goodbye to his parents on that fateful day.
4 comments:
You could no more sell that place than you could sell you self.
While this is indeed a grave and important thing to remember, Memorial is not worthy of handling it. Even putting aside their own political exploitation of the dead, which I will always find to be unsavoury no matter who does it, consider that one of their leading figures, Arseniy Roginskiy, has already admitted that despite having studied the actual statistics on repressions (determining that there were 7,1 million people arrested from 1917 to 1987, rather than 12 million from 1937 to 1939 the way "public opinion" believed), he hid them for decades because "people wouldn't understand" and let his organisation keep pushing a far bigger and more implausible number. I think he and Memorial deserve a big part of the blame for many younger people believing that there were no repressions at all nowadays - when you lie about something like that, people are going to doubt the whole deal.
(Needless to say the actual numbers of the repressed should really not matter at all when it comes to how we assess the Bolshevik regime's morality.)
Daniel .... I can only speak for myself. But in all the years of growing up, living and working in the Soviet Union, later Russia and Ukraine .... meeting and getting to know God knows how many people .... I have yet to meet one Russian/Ukrainian/former Soviet Republic who believes that the Communist reign of terror and mass murder is a lie. Not one. And while groups like Memorial and historians argue about what is the best estimate on how many died .... the fact is that for many Russians .... myself included .... that number is not important. Everyone has a story of someone who suffered during this reign of terror .... and because it impacts everyone on such a personal level .... myself included .... makes it all the more real .... and something that should be addressed when the time is right. My prediction .... in a few decades a memorial will be built .... probably on and/or near Red Square .... that will pay homage to this time of terror and to all of the victims who perished.
James, why rename the Red Square? :) It was called that for centuries, long before the Bolsheviks.
The rest of the point is well taken.
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