Ukraine's Monument War

Ukraine began 2011 with a war of monuments. The most significant blow of the ‘conflict’ thus far was struck on 31^st December, when a monument to Stalin in Zaporizhzhia was blown up. The monument was erected by the local Communist party on the territory of its headquarters in 2010. The bust was reportedly decapitated on 28 December, before its complete destruction on New Year’s Eve. The authorities have reacted robustly to the incident, according to Dzerkalo Tyzhnia and other Ukrainian media, arresting members of nationalist organizations throughout Ukraine. The culprits are wanted on charges of terrorism.

Karaganov: Russians Must Face Up to Soviet 'Suigenocide'

Sergei Karaganov delivered an extraordinary programmatic speech on the Soviet past at a meeting with President Medvedev in Yekaterinburg on 1 February 2011. In the speech, Karaganov set out his vision for reconstituting the Russian identity through a re-evaluation of the Soviet past, in a series of striking images. He argued that Russian society could not regain its self-respect until it faced up to the 'terrible sin' that was the revolution and the subsequent decades of totalitarian rule. He used the term 'suigenocide' (samogenotsid) to describe the Civil War and the Stalinist terror.