Photo: David Krikheli
History, Memory, and the Politics of History
The politics of historical memory are an inextricable part of the sociocultural and legislative landscape of the post-communist world. In a region dominated for most of the twentieth century by competing empires and totalitarian regimes, questions of remembrance and forgetting are at the heart of national conversations. The political repressions, war, and genocide that have befallen the region have left a thick residue and many unanswered questions. New national memory institutes have been established to grapple with them, but their answers have often proved more controversial than the questions. Old monuments have been brought down and new national heroes have been installed, only to set off crises in foreign relations. Streets and cities have been renamed, often against the will of some of their residents. Leaders wield history as a weapon against opponents in an attempt to score propaganda points, and legislatures adopt controversial memory laws defining what can and cannot be said about the past, igniting storms of international criticism. As political institutions formulate overarching national memory narratives, citizens struggle to fill in the gaps in their family histories left by the tragic events that have wracked their countries.
The Kennan Institute closely follows these discussions. From World War II to Stalin’s repressions to the Holocaust, Holodomor and other painful pressure points, these events and the contemporary politics of their interpretation have featured in Kennan Institute’s numerous conferences, discussion panels, and writings. This area of focus is led by Izabella Tabarovsky.
Our Latest Research on Historical Memory
Russia Without Memorial
Reconciliation but No Resolution to Poland’s and Ukraine’s Memory War
Vladimir Putin’s Version of World War II
The Ends of History and Russia's Lost War: Wilson Quarterly Fall 2020
In this edition of Wilson Center NOW we are joined by Richard Byrne, editor of the Wilson Quarterly, and Izabella Tabarovsky, Program Associate for the Kennan Institute. Byrne provides an overview of the Fall 2020 edition of the Wilson Quarterly entitled, The Ends of History.
The Right to Return Home: Victims of the Gulag Are Waging a Legal Battle for Reparation
Russia's Lost War
The official narrative of Soviet victory in World War II erases uncomfortable truths. Can Russians reclaim the forgotten human stories of those who defeated Nazi Germany?
The Price of Silence: Family Memory of Stalin's Repressions
The discovery of her great-grandfather’s name in an online database of Stalin's victims led Izabella Tabarovsky on a journey to explore and honor his life, while considering the personal and national consequences of the silence that continues to envelop repressions in Russia.
The Two Sides of the Victory Medal
Searching for Hidden Narratives of World War II in Russia
Building an Inclusive Historical Memory of the Euromaidan
Forging Hope in Exile: Interview with Guzel Yakhina, author of Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes
R.I.P “Soviet Man”: Scrapping Homo Sovieticus in the Spirit of Yuri Levada
Stalin as Superman and the Dangers of Polling in an Autocracy
Russia’s Trials of History
Why Did Stalin Kill (Not All) the Lawyers?
Inventorying the Past: Russia Refreshes Its Historical Memory
'History Must Be Measured in Human Beings'
In Russia’s World War II Commemorations, the Holocaust Remains an Unexamined Narrative
Russia’s Imaginary Stalin
Americans in the USSR: Changing Hearts and Minds in the Midst of the Cold War
Don’t Learn from Russians about the Holocaust
Preserving the Memory of Stalin’s Repressions, One Person at a Time
Babi Yar at 75: Filling in the Blanks in Ukrainian History
As Kyiv marks the 75th anniversary of Babi Yar, it faces some of the most traumatic and difficult parts of Ukraine's history. This commemoration represents an important milestone in how Ukraine confronts its troubled past as well as its current transformation into modern and tolerant nation.
Lev Simkin: “The Holocaust Began in Ukraine”
Among the tragedies of the Holocaust, Babi Yar occupies the singular position of being the largest massacre at its time: 33,771 people were murdered there over two days in September 1941. Even after all the murders of the Holocaust that followed, the killings at Babi Yar remain among the three or four largest massacres. Earlier this year, I had a chance to sit down with Lev Simkin, a Russian legal historian of the Holocaust and a former Kennan Institute Galina Starovoitova Fellow on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution.
The “Single Concept of History” in Russia
Allegations of Collaboration with Secret Police Fail to Tarnish the Russian Church’s Charisma
Why Lenin’s Corpse Lives On In Putin’s Russia
Our Past Events on Historical Memory
Transmitting Memory of Stalin’s Repressions to Russia’s Next Generation
WEBCAST: Victory Day and Russia’s Politics of History
Film Screening and Discussion: Women of the Gulag
Shortlisted for an Academy Award in the documentary category, “Women of the Gulag” tells the compelling and tragic stories of six women—possibly, the last survivors—who found themselves caught up in Stalin’s massive slave labor machine.
Ola Hnatiuk’s “Courage and Fear:” Book Talk
Ola Hnatiuk will present the rich tapestry of Lviv’s intricate social fabric and the way in which it was violently erased as the city changed hands and names.
The 1919 Pogroms in Ukraine and Poland: One Hundred Years Later
Jeffrey Veidlinger will examine how the genocidal violence that engulfed the region right after the revolution laid the groundwork for the Holocaust.
75th Anniversary of the Deportation of Crimean Tatars
This panel will address the history of the deportation and the contemporary issues facing Crimean Tatars.
“Our People”: Holocaust and Historical Memory Wars in Lithuania
In their best-selling book “Our People,” Ruta Vanagaite and Efraim Zuroff sought to explore the annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry. They visited 40 sites of mass murder in Lithuania and Belarus, interviewing eyewitnesses and piecing together the role of different elements of wartime Lithuanian society in the events. They discussed their findings, how they are viewed in Lithuania, and what they mean in the broader context of historical memory debates taking place throughout the post-communist world.
Book Talk: Zuleikha
U.S. Film Premiere and Discussion: "The Right to Memory"
"Stalin and the Black Book of Soviet Jewry" and "The Road to Babi Yar"
A Journey to the Gulag: Film Screening and Virtual Reality Demonstration
The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan
Commemorating Victims of Stalin’s Repressions in the Post-Soviet Space
From “New Babylon” to “King Lear”: The Kozintsev-Shostakovich Collaboration
Moscow 1956: The Silenced Spring
The year 1956 in Russia started with Nikita Khrushchev’s bombshell “Secret Speech” denouncing Stalin’s purges and ended with Soviet intervention to quash the Hungarian uprising. Kathleen Smith pinpoints the beginning of the unraveling of the Soviet system in the traumatic events of the year. Through the life stories of former GULAG prisoners-turned policy makers, persecuted geneticists, idealistic students, wary writers, and reeling propagandists, Smith captures the painful dynamic of reform and retreat that shaped the political views of the generation that would mastermind perestroika.
Book Talk: "Gulag Town, Company Town Forced Labor and Its Legacy in Vorkuta"
What was the relationship between the Gulag and Soviet society? What was the legacy of Stalin's massive system of forced labor? This talk explored answers to these questions using the case of Vorkuta, one of the Soviet Union's most notorious prison camp complexes.
The 1919 Pogroms in Ukraine and Poland: One Hundred Years Later
Jeffrey Veidlinger will examine how the genocidal violence that engulfed the region right after the revolution laid the groundwork for the Holocaust.