“This is one of the most important books [...] from Russia in the past 20 years,” said Andrzej Nowak, a historian from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. In an e-mail message, he praised “the exemplary way” it treated sensitive topics like the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; the wartime agreement between Hitler and Stalin; the Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939; and the mass murder of Polish officers at Katyn. [...]
“Society is not satisfied,” [RIA Novosti columnist Aleksandr] Arkhangelsky said at the [book] presentation. “It is looking for an answer to the question: Who were we? [...] This means that very serious times await us, because in Russia historical mass consciousness becomes acute on the eve of major changes.”
On 30 October, Russia commemorated the victims of political repression. The “Day of the Political Prisoner” was instituted by dissidents in 1974 and became an official “feast” day in 1991. This year, President Dmitrii Medvedev delivered a speech on his video blog, in which he expressed concern about the state of historical memory in contemporary Russia:
“Два года назад социологи провели опрос. Почти девяносто процентов наших граждан, молодых граждан в возрасте от 18 до 24 лет не смогли даже назвать фамилии известных людей, которые пострадали или погибли в те годы от репрессий. И это, конечно, не может не тревожить. <…> важно не допустить под видом восстановления исторической справедливости оправдания тех, кто уничтожал свой народ <…> Никто, кроме нас самих, не сохранит историческую память и не передаст ее новым поколениям.” (The full text can be found here.)
This emphasis on the personal responsibility of the Russian people in coming to terms with the negative aspects of the country’s past and present is in tune with another recent statement about shortcomings in the areas of economics and civil society, among other things. Medvedev’s appeal provides a refreshing contrast to government rhetoric presenting Stalin’s victims as the “collateral damage” of the creation of a mighty empire. Yet the speech has attracted little attention, both in Russia and in the West.
It is of course impossible to predict whether deeds will follow these words, such as the establishment of a museum of political repression, as demanded by the “Memorial” society – apparently a lively and positive correspondence with various government agencies is now under way – or a more liberal climate for historical research. But perhaps the President is testing the waters, and surely in this case the community of commentators and scholars out to encourage the tentative new course?
Two exciting presentations recently launched the new research seminar series in East European Memory Studies at the Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). Andrzej Nowak (Jagiellonian University, Krakow) surveyed two central trends of Polish memory connected to empire. The first trend involved the memory of ‘Polish empire' -- the Jagiellonian dynasty of late Middle Ages, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Second Polish Republic of Joseph Pilsudski, the 2003 Polish occupational zone in Iraq (with its capital in... Babylon) -- while the second involved the memory of 'Poland under empire.' Mark Bassin (University of Birmingham) explored the significance of the Battle of Kulikovo for Russian nationalism in the early 1980s, offering fresh insights into the work of Lev Gumilev and Olzhas Suleimenov.
Turkey and Armenia signed a historic reconciliation accord earlier today, not without some last-minute drama. Headlines in Turkish media are currently focusing on, among other things, the fact that no spoken comments were made on either side at the time of the signing, but the moment was nonetheless a remarkable achievement that bodes well for the future. The accord counts among its directives the creation of a historical commission to study the events of the World War I era slaughter of over one million Armenians, which the Turkish state still does not recognize as genocide.
by Alexander Etkind Originally published in the 17 September 2009 edition of The Moscow Times
Soviet ideology was always about the future. By contrast, today’s official Russian ideology seems to be focused squarely on the past.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s recent article for the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza — written to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland — expresses his determination to make 20th-century European history a major part of the Russian government’s business. That article reflects the deep, unresolved problems of Putin’s era: the inability to distinguish between the Soviet past and the Russian present; an unscrupulous mix of political conservatism and historical revisionism; and indifference, bordering on incomprehension, with regard to the key values of democracy.
In his article, Putin did not mourn the collapse of the Soviet Union. Indeed, he even praised the democratic movements that buried the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence, and he expressed no sympathy for the 20th century’s revolutions, which he called “deep wounds” that humanity inflicted on itself.
What really worries Putin is the balancing of World War II and Stalinism in Soviet history. Calling for a “contextual” and “causal” view of history, he acknowledges the Stalinist terror but interprets it as a response to the extraordinary need to defeat Nazism.
Putin summarizes his understanding of the scale of the war by recalling the loss of “27 million lives of my compatriots.” That number has grown over the years, as Soviet officials broadened the definition of wartime deaths to mean total “population loss,” rather than direct military casualties. Official estimates of Soviet deaths in World War II thus rose from 7 million (the figure put forth under Stalin) to 20 million (Khrushchev) to 26.6 million (Gorbachev), with civilian deaths accounting for at least two-thirds of Putin’s estimate.
Unfortunately, Putin does not explain whom he counts as his compatriots. If he meant those who lived within Russia’s contemporary borders, the number would have been much lower. Instead, he includes all citizens of the Soviet Union who died during the war, including millions of Ukrainians, Belarussians, and others. And, when the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic countries, Königsberg, parts of Poland, Finland, Moldova, and Japan, their citizens, too, became Soviet compatriots.
Moreover, because Putin’s “contextual” history subordinates Soviet-era suffering to the purpose of fighting the Great Patriotic War, his number mixes those who died in battle fighting for the Soviet Union with those whom the Soviets killed through mass murder, deportation, and forced labor. By this logic, one could also reclassify the victims of the terror, collectivization, and famine of the 1930s in order to boost the number of Hitler’s casualties in the Soviet Union.
Putin connects two events that triggered World War II, the Munich Agreement of 1938 and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, in one causal construction. Both acts of collusion with Nazi Germany were immoral mistakes, writes Putin, but the latter was merely a response to the former. To be sure, Britain’s Neville Chamberlain and France’s Edouard Daladier signed a shameful treaty with Hitler and Mussolini in Munich. But when Hitler breached the treaty, both Chamberlain and Daladier lost popular support, and, by the start of World War II, neither was still in office. The dictators remained, however, Molotov and Stalin among them.
Moreover, while the Munich Agreement cynically blessed Hitler’s dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, it was a public document that meant what it said. But the truly important part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was its Secret Protocols, which divided Europe into two imperial domains, Stalin’s and Hitler’s, without the consent — or even the knowledge — of the nations consigned to them. Molotov, who remained in power throughout the war and until 1956, denied the existence of the Secret Protocols until his death 30 years later. Democracies make shameful mistakes, but they eventually correct them, or at least apologize for them. And they dethrone those who got them into trouble.
It is wrong, and even immoral, to equate democratic and dictatorial practices. But this is the new Russian equation.
During a visit today to the Donets'k oblast, Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych proposed to erect a monument to the World War II "Liberator" (Визволитель) on the border of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. According to Ukrains'ka pravda, the leader of the Party of Regions said, "We know who brought freedom and peace to our land," adding in Kremlin-friendly language that he was against attempts to "rewrite history."
Po pierwsze, nie było przeprosin... Putin snuł pewną opowieść, która jest właściwa dla nacjonalizmu. Rosja Stalina była przedstawiana jako zwykłe państwo. Były oczywiście jakieś przyjazne dla Polski akcenty, ale są one nie satysfakcjonujące.
First of all, there was no apology... Putin spun a story that was suitable for [Russian] nationalism. Stalin's Russia was presented as a normal state. There were some nice sentiments for Poland, but they were not enough.
Kaczyński went on to ask why Putin had been invited to Gdańsk in the first place.
Together with other European leaders, the Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian Prime Ministers are meeting in Gdańsk today to commemorate the 70th anniversary of World War II. Vladimir Putin's visit in particular is making headlines. According to a recent poll conducted by GfK Polonia for the newspaper Rzeczpospolita (The Republic),
Na pytanie, czy podczas uroczystości 1 września Władimir Putin powinien przeprosić za napaść na Polską 17 września 1939 r. "tak" odpowiedziało 76 proc. ankietowanych. Przeciwnego zdania było 18 proc. badanych. Nie miało zdania w tej sprawie - 6 proc.
As to the question, 'Should Vladimir Putin apologise for the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September 1939 during the 1 September commemoration ceremonies,' 76% of respondents said 'Yes.' 18% of the polled were of the opposite view. 6% did not have an opinion on the matter.
Photo from Rzeczpospolita's website. A good article on the memory politics wrought by the 1939 invasion in Poland appeared in yesterday's Financial Times.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko responded to Dmitrii Medvedev's charges of "anti-Russian" behavior today in a consciously respectful (albeit at times exasperated) letter that spoke of a "tradition of friendship and good-neighbourly relations" between Ukraine and Russia rather than "fraternal" ties (as Medvedev asserted repeatedly in his letter). Refuting Medvedev's charge that Ukraine has used the tragedy of 1932-33 as part of an "anti-Russian" project, Yushchenko said:
[У]країнський народ віддає також данину пам'яті мільйонам росіян, білорусів, казахів та представників інших національностей, що померли від голоду у Поволжі, на Північному Кавказі, в Казахстані та інших регіонах колишнього СРСР. Відомо, що під час проведення Акції пам'яті «Незгасима свічка», присвяченої 75-м роковинам Голодомору в Україні, у вікнах сотень міст в усьому світі, у тому числі й у Росії, горіли свічки, що є свідченням багатонаціональної солідарності з Україною у визнанні цього факту.
The Ukrainian people also commemorate the millions of Russians, Belorussians, Kazakhs, and members of other nationalities who died from hunger in the Lower Volga region, the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan, and other regions of the former USSR. It should be noted that during the "Inextinguishable Candle" campaign, dedicated to the 75th Anniversary of Holodomor in Ukraine, candles were lit in the windows of hundreds of cities around the world, including in Russia -- bearing witness to a multinational solidarity with Ukraine in recognition of [Holodomor].
Dmitrii Medvedev, visibly perturbed despite the tranquility of his surroundings, addressed the public in a new videoblog entry today to decry the Kremlin's relations with Kyiv, explicitly throwing himself into Ukrainian presidential election politics perhaps earlier than expected. In his remarks, based on a letter sent today to Viktor Yushchenko, Medvedev cites Gogol''s 1842 imperial-friendly edition of Taras Bul'ba as an elegy to, in his view, less acrimonious times -- Нет уз святее товарищества, "There is no stronger bond of fellowship" (i.e. than the bond between Ukrainians and Russians), words not original to the 1835 edition of Bul'ba -- and identifies Ukrainian efforts to come to terms with the legacy of Soviet terror as evidence of a larger "anti-Russian" project.
Yesterday the New York Times covered the publication of a landmark two-volume history of twentieth-century Russia edited by Andrei Zubov. An excerpt from the article:
